-Livemint.com Mahalanobis gave our data system global recognition and we must ask why we lost that credibility In the summer of 1946, at the ‘nuclear’ session of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC), a representative of a British colony made an impassioned plea for laying down globally accepted standards for conducting large-scale sample surveys. Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis argued that household surveys would become invaluable data sources for many developing countries that were...

-The Hindu   Why has the revision of textbooks in the State triggered opposition from several communities, writers and students? The story so far: A textbook revision committee headed by Rohith Chakrathirtha was set up in Karnataka following a memorandum submitted by the Karnataka Brahmin Mahasabha to the Primary and Secondary Education Minister B.C. Nagesh. The memorandum demanded revision of Class 6 Social Science textbooks on the ground that they “hurt the...

-The Hindu The government should re-establish its role as the principal employment generator With his announcement that 10 lakh government jobs will be provided over the next 18 months on a “mission mode”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent four messages. One, the creation of employment is indeed a problem and can no longer be hidden from the public discourse. Two, the private sector, especially modern sectors such as the service and manufacturing...

-The Telegraph The media’s culpability is damaging India’s interests Media culpability can damage a country’s interests. Two recent instances will suffice to illustrate the point. The media’s role in recent events triggered by a Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson’s remarks on Prophet Mohammed has received less attention than it deserves. The focus has been on the offending spokesperson. There was mayhem across the land on account of a television news show. The tally...

-TheWire.in In the last three years, the Indian economy has been in crisis even if its organized sector has been doing well. Three years of Narendra Modi’s second stint as Prime Minister was celebrated by the Bharatiya Janata Party earlier this month. The self-congratulatory campaign, however, was spoiled quickly by a succession of events, all of which point to what has gone wrong during his tenure. FIRst came the news that the economy...