-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...

-Newsclick.in Increase in Muslim population is not due to immigrants but because of higher birth rate, which is driven by poverty and illiteracy. Assam’s Muslim population was recorded as about 34% of the state’s total population in 2011 Census. It was about 31% in 2001 and over 28% in 1991. That’s not much of an increase. Yet insidious political propaganda about rising Muslim population has swamped the minds of people, both...

  A document of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) dated 25th June, 2018 says that the number of members subscribing to the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) scheme gives one an idea of the level of employment in the formal sector viz. mostly employment in establishments employing 20 or more persons (though EPF is applicable for certain organisations, which employ less than 20 persons, subject to certain conditions and...

-The Indian Express Denotified tribes are those that were labelled as criminals through a legislation by British government and were denotified post-independence. Even as the Bill to accord constitutional status to the OBC commission is awaiting passage in Parliament, the NITI Aayog has backed a proposal by a panel constituted by the Ministry of Social justice and Empowerment to set up a permanent commission for Denotified (DNT), Semi Nomadic (SNT), and Nomadic...

-The Hindu Recent Census data appear to inadequately reflect India’s linguistic composition, and are inconsistent with global ideas The story, “Death of Jagmohan, the Elephant”, by Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi, is about the death of an elephant. For a reader, the story may appear to be about a rather “big death”, but what the writer wanted to say was that there are also many “small deaths”. They include the deaths of Dalits...