-Livemint.com A recent large-scale survey on sanitation in India raises more questions than it answers Bengaluru: India has built more toilets over the past two years than it did in the previous five years, if the latest official sanitation survey is to be believed. The National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS) conducted between November 2017 and March 2018 shows that 75% of rural households in the country have access to toilets, a...

-The Hindu The terms of reference of the 15th Finance Commission raise questions about constitutional propriety It is not without reason that the presidential terms of reference (ToR) of the Fifteenth Finance Commission have raised questions, and the recent conclave of Finance Ministers of the southern States to discuss contentious issues in the ToR is only the beginning. In the months ahead more debate on this is likely. But the line by...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The government will have a brand new set of employment numbers to flash before the next general elections in 2019, which will highlight job creation. Under the first of its kind massive survey, which starts on the first week of April, the government wants to track employment generation in micro, small and medium enterprises that are currently out of the coverage of the social security net. The survey...

The increase in organized sector employment (i.e. in establishments employing 10 or more workers) in the second quarter was much higher as compared to that in the first quarter of 2017-18. The seventh round of the Quarterly Report on Employment Scenario in selected sectors (as on 1st October, 2017), which was released in March this year, confirms this. The Labour Bureau’s latest report says that during the period 1st April to...

-Livemint.com Use of population figures from 2011 census instead of 1971 census for sharing tax revenue among states triggers opposition from South India New Delhi: A political storm is brewing in South India over what is normally a largely unnoticed bureaucratic exercise undertaken once in five years to determine how India distributes its pooled tax revenues among its many states. Several chief ministers and opposition leaders of southern states have expressed vehement opposition...