-Livemint.com Farming activities comprise more than half of the total average monthly income for agricultural households, as per the latest survey by Nabard Bengaluru/ New Delhi: Farmers may be looking for alternative avenues of income, but it is too soon to write off the significance of agriculture in rural India, data from the recently released Nabard All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey (NAFIS) shows. An initial reading of the survey findings seems to...

-The Hindu The former Chief Statistician on calculating GDP back series, on indicators of development, and the fall of the rupee The draft of the back series GDP data, which was made public by the government recently, is unlikely to change drastically even if other methods of calculation are used, says former Chief Statistician of India, Pronab Sen. The noted economist discusses GDP, employment and poverty data; the value of the rupee;...

-Newsclick.in In the latest govt. release of EPF and ESI numbers, the chaos in industry is revealed – not job situation. What was started last year as a trial balloon has now become a joke, after getting sanctified by everybody in the govt., from PM Modi downwards. Yesterday, the govt. released new numbers on how many people enrolled in three of its social security schemes, provident fund (EPF), employees health insurance (ESI)...

A recent report by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) enlightens one about the state of farmers' income and indebtedness in 2015-16. Entitled NABARD All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey 2016-17 – in short NAFIS 2016-17 – the report says that between 2012-13 and 2015-16 the average monthly income for agricultural households grew by around 39 percent. One may recall that the Key Indicators of Situation Assessment Survey...

-Livemint.com Preference for government jobs is highest among college-educated rural youth, a segment seen at the forefront of recent agitations for quotas, shows analysis In one of the largest such exercises ever conducted in the world, millions of applicants are appearing this month for an online recruitment test conducted by the Indian Railways. The Railways Recruitment Board (RRB) has received more than 24 million applications for roughly 120,000 vacancies in the organization. Most...