-Livemint.com Data on incomes and wealth suggest India is far more unequal than official estimates based on consumption expenditure data suggest Inequality is in the news once again and the news is not particularly good. In a speech last month, Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan commented that increasing inequality could be curtailing world demand. Since the rich typically spend a smaller portion of their income compared with the poor—who spend...

-Economic and Political Weekly The platform known as the JAM Trinity (an acronym for Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and mobile numbers) may enable a shift from the current Public Distribution System, based on price subsidies, to the direct transfer of benefits. However, it is incorrect to argue that JAM technologies will necessarily lead to the demise of the PDS. State-level experiences of computerisation, recounted here, reveal that the same technologies can...

-The Indian Express Why early life investment matters, and what we should do about it. With the success in reducing child mortality, the challenge before India is to safeguard early-life conditions in order to prevent long-run loss in welfare for individuals and the economy. Malnutrition rates for India are extremely high, with about 38.4 per cent of children being stunted and 46 per cent underweight (National Family Health Survey, 2005-06). There...

-The Hindu Business Line Will help Policymakers, analysts calculate impact of decisions on real-time job market The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation is set to launch quarterly and annual surveys on employment. “We are in the process of getting administrative clearances. The methodology has already been finalised and the surveys should be launched soon,” said TCA Anant, the country’s Chief Statistician. Once this is done, it is expected to bridge a major deficit...

-The Indian Express Scapegoating ‘hoarders’ and ‘speculators’ for the spike in dal prices might have been effective in the 1960s. But today, it is only evidence of a rather sloppy conceptual policy framework. The pulse rate of a normal and healthy human body hovers between 60 and 100 beats per minute. There can be problems if it goes any higher — and a serious threat to life over 200 beats per...