-Firstpost.com The recent increases in minimum support prices have attracted two criticisms from two opposite sides. One is that this is less than what farmers deserve, the second is that this is populist and ignores larger macro side effects. The increase in fair remunerative price for sugarcane has also been criticised for not adequately addressing the woes of the sugar sector. Ramesh Chand, member, agriculture, NITI Aayog talks to Firstpost on...

-Newsclick.in Leaking EPFO enrolment numbers, and tall tales about trucks and buses, and doctors and engineers, marked PM Modi’s deceptive claims on jobs in his Lok Sabha speech. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave when at first we start to deceive" wrote Sir Walter Scott two centuries ago. The Modi govt.’s attempt to create data on non-existent jobs confirms this truth. Since last year, an increasingly cornered govt. has been marshalling all...

-Business Standard The difference in dimensions of the old and new Rs 100 notes could pose a serious problem Mumbai/ Delhi: New Rs 100 notes will require a recalibration of 240,000 automated teller machines (ATMs) across the country, and the process will cost the industry about Rs 1 billion and take more than a year, said ATM operators. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced on Thursday it would soon release lavender-coloured Rs...

-The Indian Express The data in India is flawed, marked by both under- and over-reporting. The question is not whether India’s women are safe, but whether they are free Very rarely does data become a political hot-button issue in India, dominating the shouty nightly news debates and the daily Twitter sniping. Earlier this month, it was about data on the status of women, following an international survey that found India to be...

-Economic and Political Weekly The right to information, much like the right to vote, is rooted in the same fundamental right, with the offices of the chief information commissioner and the chief election commissioner, respectively, operating at the same level of autonomy, towards the enforcement of these rights. The proposed amendments to the Right to Information Act, which reportedly seek to downgrade the status of the chief information commissioner and information...