-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 Business Line India is heading for a record production of rice, the main cereal crop in 2018-19, despite a dismal performance of the monsoon. The Agriculture Ministry’s second advance estimates has pegged the rice production at a record 115.60 million tonnes, about 2.38 per cent higher than the latest or fourth advance estimates for 2017-18. The bumper production is on account of substantial increase in production during the kharif season,...

-The Hindu Jaipur: As part of a nationwide campaign, representatives of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) Sangharsh Morcha and the Rajasthan Unorganised Labour Union on Thursday filed complaints for registration of First Information Reports (FIR) in more than 10 police stations in five districts of the State for non-payment of wages to labourers engaged under the Centre's flagship scheme. The complainants said that the government’s failure to pay wages and...

-The Indian Express The SECC has identified a total of 1.82 lakh households where at least one person is employed in manual scavenging in rural India, numbers which have been dismissed as gross underestimate by organisations working in the area. The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has issued orders to all States to use the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) so as to identify persons working as manual scavengers, persons with disabilities,...

-Scroll.in The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha accused Modi of making false promises to make workers perform their jobs, cheating them of their wages and violating the law. Thousands of workers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act on Thursday tried to file a first information report against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha collective said in a press release. The collective said the attempt was made on occasion of National Day...