-The Hindu There needs to be robust infrastructure for official statistics so that governments do not suppress inconvenient truths Over the past two weeks, headlines have focussed on declining employment between 2011-12 and 2016-17; loss of jobs under the National Democratic Alliance government, particularly post-demonetisation; and the government’s refusal to release a report using the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) documenting this decline, leading to resignations of two members of the National...

-News18.com Citing data from provident fund and National Pension System (NPS), Income Tax filings and sale of vehicles among others, the Prime Minister said crores of jobs had been created in the last four and half year. New Delhi: Facing criticism over lack of job creation by his government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday rejected allegations of rising unemployment and said crores of new jobs have been created in formal...

-TheWire.in The new vision wants youth to figure out education and skills on their own but still expects them to be the drivers of economic progress. Piyush Goyal, presenting the interim budget, called it a road map for peoples’ development – a fitting description for an election year budget. Accordingly, it contained the expected sops to farmers (income support), to the middle class and home owners (increase in income tax and rental...

-India Today The Narendra Modi government has claimed that its flagship Mudra loan scheme is generating employment. But, data shows a miniscule number of Mudra loans generate a return that satisfies even the minimum wage requirement. * The Modi-led govt has been showcasing the Mudra loan scheme to claim that millions of jobs are being created * There is no official data available on the number of jobs created due to the Mudra...

-The Indian Express Repeated government interventions in official data release run the risk of denting market trust in it The controversy over two top functionaries of the National Statistical Commission (NSC) resigning in protest over the NSSO (National Sample Survey Organisation) withholding its new employment survey adds to a growing list of government interventions in data releases. There is a common theme — the government is seen to take an adversarial...