-The Telegraph Refusal to face up to economic problems will tarnish India’s reputation as an economy and a democracy The Narendra Modi-led government has done it again. The Centre has scrapped the all-India survey on household consumption expenditure conducted by the then National Sample Survey Office. A few months ago, the government had refused to make public the official survey conducted on employment in India. There was considerable pressure exerted by economists...

-Business Standard Scholars across the world had appealed for the survey reports, including one on household consumer expenditure. The Union government on Saturday released five sets of survey reports on key socio-economic trends, most of which were approved but withheld. The junked consumer expenditure survey was not among these. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released the survey reports, ‘Household Social Consumption in India: Health’ and ‘Household Social Consumption in India:...

-The Hindu The party recommended that electoral bonds should be issued without any serial number or identification marks. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had pitched for greater anonymity for donors of electoral bonds, according to a letter sent by party general secretary Bhupendra Yadav to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in August 2017 when the scheme was being drafted. This letter was obtained by activist Lokesh Batra through a Right to Information application. The...

-The Indian Express All crop loans should be routed through Kisan Credit Cards. This will ensure that farmers do not use the loans for non-agricultural purposes. Normally, a sector’s credit off-take is a sign of its health. Higher the off-take, the better the sector’s performance. There has been a healthy off-take of ground-level credit (GLC) in agriculture and allied sectors. In the financial year (FY) 2018-19, banks disbursed Rs 12.55 trillion...

-The Hindu Only 71% of rural households had access to toilets at a time the Centre was claiming 95% The latest National Statistical Office (NSO) survey on sanitation debunked the claims of an open defecation-free or ODF India made by the Centre’s flagship Swachh Bharat scheme, although it did record great progress in toilet access and use in rural areas. The survey, released on Saturday, showed that about 71% of rural households had...