Passionate about the deepening of agrarian crisis, quite often journalists and media persons cite figures related to farm suicide (as provided by the National Crime Records Bureau) in order to draw the attention of the readers. They do so in the following ways: * Compare the absolute number of farm suicides (viz. suicide by cultivators + suicide by agricultural labourers) across regions/ states for a particular time point or time period...

-The Hindu A structural break can be observed in the GDP back series before and after the year 2011-12 India’s national income statistics are under a cloud. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has released official revisions of the GDP estimates for the years 2004-05 to 2013-14 in the Manmohan Singh-led government’s tenure. The revisions make the Narendra Modi government’s performance on the economic front appear better than that of its predecessor. In 2015,...

-The Hindu Efforts to make agriculture climate-resilient must be scaled up and consolidated The pervasiveness of climatic aberrations and the associated socio-economic vulnerability are now widely recognised and experienced across the globe. The Sixth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on “Global Warming at 1.5°C” distinctly propagates the need to strengthen and enhance existing coping capacity and to remain committed to the objectives of the Paris Agreement. The report...

Just a few days ahead of the Kisan Mukti March in Delhi NCR, the provisional results of the Agriculture Census 2015-16 became available in the public domain. The report, among other things, highlights the long-term problems affecting Indian agriculture including fragmentation of land holdings (particularly the marginal and small ones) and shrinking average size of farm land. The provisional results of the latest Agriculture Census reveal that at the national level...

-Livemint.com An economy’s resilience and sustainability is best measured through its institutional strength The official back data on India’s gross domestic product (GDP), released by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) on Wednesday, runs the risk of denting the market’s trust and conviction in official data released by government agencies. The new data release contradicts the earlier findings of a committee set up by National Statistical Commission to develop a methodology for deriving...