-Business Standard EPFO data given to non-government researchers for the first time. EPFO was unaware of the access The study that claimed 7 million people would be added to the payroll in 2017-18 was triggered by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), which had asked the NITI Aayog last October to give “quick indicators for direct or indirect reflections on employment data” to be able to arrive at “desired trends in employment at...

-Frontline.in Despite its deeply flawed neoliberal perspective, Economic Survey 2017-18 is rich in detail, has many useful analytical discussions at different levels of aggregation, and would serve as a useful resource for students and scholars. When Arvind Subramanian, the present Chief Economic Adviser to the Ministry of Finance who took office way back in October 2014, presented his first Economic Survey, the one for 2014-15, there was considerable novelty on offer, at...

-PTI The Centre will consult State Governments early next month to set up a mechanism for protecting farmers' income when market prices fall below the minimum support price (MSP), Agriculture Secretary S K Pattanayak said today. A model law is also being prepared to ensure tenant cultivators get institutional credit and interest subsidy, he added. "We will call a meeting of State Governments early next month to discuss a mechanism so that farmers...

-The New Indian Express HYDERABAD: Seeking a legal right status to their two demands- one that of assured remunerative prices for agricultural produce and second, that of farmers’ freedom from debts, members of 190 farmers’ organisation, including 25 from Telangana, met in the city on Thursday to take the discourse and struggle forward. The All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee has been leading a nationwide farmers’ movement on these two demands...

-The Financial Express The scheme, part-funded by the World Bank, aims at pushing recharge of groundwater sources and efficient use at the local level. Rapidly-depleting groundwater in nearly a third of the blocks that were assessed in a study by the Central Ground Water Board (CWGB) has caused, The Times of India reports, the Centre to put the Rs 6,000-crore Atal Bhujal Yojana on fast-track. The scheme, part-funded by the World Bank,...