-TheWire.in The new periodic labour force surveys, while welcome, will create a situation where there would be no data system to compare the present with the past. In a recent interview, Prime Minister Narendra Modi apparently said, “more than a lack of jobs, the issue is a lack of data on jobs”. For those of us who have been using the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) data on employment and unemployment for...

-Livemint.com Rural development secretary Amarjeet Sinha on how MGNREGS has evolved since 2006 to result in income, acreage, water tables, productivity and fodder availability Agrarian distress and rural distress are terms used interchangeably, but the rural economy today is very different from what it was many years ago, given the diversification of rural incomes and hence incorrect to think one means the other, says Amarjeet Sinha, secretary, ministry of rural development. In...

Good news about digital inclusion often leaves little room for reporting on bad experiences, which netizens encounter in the digital world. A recent report by LIRNEAsia – an ICT [information and communication technology] policy and regulation think tank working in the Asia-Pacific – says that almost one among five Indian netizens in the age-group 15-65 years had faced online harassment in 2017. In contrast, roughly twelve out of hundred internet...

-Vikalp.ind.in In a recent interview with the Swarajya magazine, the Prime Minister of India apparently said, ‘more than a lack of jobs, the issue is a lack of data on jobs’[1]. For those of us who have been using the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) data on employment and unemployment for decades now, such a statement made by the government, come as a surprise. As a researcher I have been using...

-TheWire.in Mexican economist David Barkin on India's neoliberal economics, growing inequalities, agrarian distress and more. David Barkin is Professor of Economics at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City. He received his doctorate in economics from Yale University and was awarded the National Prize in Political Economics in 1979 for his analysis of inflation in Mexico. His research has focused on the development of an alternative to the capitalist economic model. In an...