-Livemint.com The prime minister is partly right in the sense that the most authoritative data on employment-unemployment from the periodic NSSO were not available after 2011-12 In an interview given to Swarajya magazine earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lamented the lack of data on jobs in the country. This was in response to a question on why the economy is not creating jobs. The prime minister is partly right...

-The Hindu The RTI Act Amendment Bill must be junked The Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, has empowered millions of Indians to question governments and hold public functionaries accountable. Of the nearly six million RTI applications filed every year in the country, a large proportion are by the poorest and the most marginalised who seek information about their basic rights and entitlements, like rations, pensions and health facilities. The use of...

-The Hindu ‘BJP is being discussed only for its religious agenda’ MANGALURU (Karnataka): The decisions on economic policy taken by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance Government at the Centre in the second half of its rule has hit the rural economy in a hard way, said theatre personality and Gandhian Prasanna here on Sunday. During his interaction with a group of people at the University College auditorium, Mr. Prasanna said that...

-Firstpost.com The recent increases in minimum support prices have attracted two criticisms from two opposite sides. One is that this is less than what farmers deserve, the second is that this is populist and ignores larger macro side effects. The increase in fair remunerative price for sugarcane has also been criticised for not adequately addressing the woes of the sugar sector. Ramesh Chand, member, agriculture, NITI Aayog talks to Firstpost on...

-The Indian Express Raising procurement prices of kharif crops will only give false hope to farmers. Has the winter of farmers’ discontent turned into a glorious summer by the significant hike in minimum support price (MSP) for kharif crops announced two weeks ago? The hike is unlikely to stem the rural unrest that is gnawing into the ruling alliance’s votebank. The PM has had to personally defend the government’s programmes that have...