-The Indian Express Policy still hasn’t adjusted itself to address the crisis of agricultural produce deflation. India’s agricultural output grew by hardly 2.7 per cent during the last October-December quarter. That isn’t bad, if one takes the corresponding year-on-year increases for the preceding 10 quarters; these have ranged between 4.2 per cent and 7.5 per cent. The cause for concern is that these reasonably good production growth rates in “real” terms...

-The Indian Express The analysis is based on new voters who crossed the eligibility age of 18 years after the 2014 elections and were added during subsequent annual summary revisions of electoral rolls. This Lok Sabha election, the youth may hold the key in as many as 282 seats across 29 states, where there could be more first-time voters than their respective winning margins in 2014, an analysis of Election Commission...

-The Indian Express There are substantial inequalities even within Dalits. In addition to the 15 per cent quota, the community should also have reservation based on socioeconomic criteria. Reservations are sometimes criticised in a constructive manner by analysts who argue that quotas are cornered by a few jatis at the expense of those who “really need them”. Among Dalits, the Jatavs of Uttar Pradesh and the Mahars of Maharashtra have been...

-The Indian Express Indian statistical system can withstand political pressures. Legislation and public scrutiny can strengthen it further. One unfortunate fallout of the recent controversy regarding the non-publication of the labour force survey report by the National Sample Survey Organisation has been the questions raised on the autonomy and independence of the Indian official statistical system. As reported in this newspaper, the possibility of junking the survey report in favour of...

-The Hindu A basic income scheme will deliver benefits to the poor only if it comes on top of public services The idea of a universal basic income (UBI) is gaining ground globally. It has supporters among the political left and right, and among proponents as well as opponents of the free-market economy. A UBI requires the government to pay every citizen a fixed amount of money on a regular basis and...