-The Hindu There needs to be robust infrastructure for official statistics so that governments do not suppress inconvenient truths Over the past two weeks, headlines have focussed on declining employment between 2011-12 and 2016-17; loss of jobs under the National Democratic Alliance government, particularly post-demonetisation; and the government’s refusal to release a report using the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) documenting this decline, leading to resignations of two members of the National...

-The Indian Express In the wake of life’s savings lost to scams, children have dropped out of school, marriages have been put off, people have left homes, and suicide, say some, is the only option. The Indian Express on the stories forgotten in the headlines. Most days, Raqib Sardar can be seen hanging around a tea shop at Sonarpur Railway Station in South 24 Parganas district, 30 km from Kolkata, looking...

-The Telegraph Govt. views detection as a sign of better disease management The rise in the number of recorded leprosy cases from 86,147 (in 2013-14) to 90,709 (2017-18), reported a decade and a half after India was declared leprosy-free in 2005, has turned the spotlight on the hotspots for the disease. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has set the goal of zero children with leprosy and deformities by 2020, and less than one...

-PTI NEW DELHI: The Delhi government is considering a nearly threefold-hike in the margin money for ration dealers from existing Rs 70 to Rs 200 per quintal, besides paying arrears to them. Food and civil supplies minister Imran Hussain on Saturday said the matter is under active consideration of the government. "A proposal in this regard will be placed before the cabinet at the earliest for trebling the margin money," Hussain said...

-Down to Earth The use of tax incentives to attract investments is prevalent around the world. However, there is no definitive data on the global magnitude of incentives granted because not all countries collect and publicly report such data and there is no common methodology for reporting across all countries. Rough estimate by Action Aid (2013) pegs the incentives granted by developing countries from corporate income tax (CIT) at $138 billion....