-The Hindu Misplaced optimism needs to cede ground to tangible policy interventions The government’s advance estimates for economic output and growth for the fiscal year ending in March may raise eyebrows, but only for the wrong reasons. The National Statistical Office (NSO) has estimated that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will expand by 5% in the 12-month period, in line with the Reserve Bank of India’s sharp downward revision last month in its...

-PTI The first meeting of the SCES is scheduled on January 6, 2020 The statistics ministry has constituted a 28 member Standing Committee on Statistics (SCES) chaired by former Chief Statistician Pronab Sen to improve quality of data amid criticism of the government over political interference. “The first meeting of the SCES is scheduled on January 6, 2020. The agenda would be very broad based. We will come to know about that only...

-Economic and Political Weekly The child undernutrition estimates from the Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey, 2016–18 reveal that many Indian states have made substantial decline, reversing their poor past record in wasting, ranging from 7 to 14 percentage points within just 30 months. Is it really possible to make such a large decline in such a short span of time? Or, does this point to an anomaly in data or estimation? Please click...

-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 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...