In the absence of income or expenditure-based headcount ratio, the growth in the real wages (i.e., nominal wages adjusted against retail inflation) of the manual workers is considered to be a good proxy to assess the trends in poverty. This is because the manual, unskilled/ semi-skilled labourers exist at the bottom of the pyramid or economic hierarchy, and most of them belong to the social categories Scheduled Castes (SCs) and...

-The Hindu Limited impact in western Uttar Pradesh’s sugarcane belt After attracting thousands of farmers from Punjab and Uttar Pradesh to join a year-long agitation, farm union leaders were largely unable to leverage that mass support to tilt the results in the Assembly polls.  In Punjab, the union leaders who fought the elections are set to lose their deposits. In U.P., where the wider Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) platform campaigned against the BJP...

-Newsclick.in Prison occupancy in India has been on the rise over the past five years with overcrowded jails struggling to cater to the needs of prisoners. Experts point to the mass incarceration of pre-trial prisoners. Following an increase in prison overcrowding in India, critics are calling for new reforms to the judicial process, to decrease the length of trials and reduce the number of inmates. Three out of every four people held in...

-Newsclick.in The roots of the present crisis lie in wrong policies adopted over the last two decades that have undermined domestic production of fertilisers led by the public sector and increased dependence on imports and production by the private sector. Indian farmers have been facing a major crisis because of shortages in availability and an unprecedented rise in prices of fertilisers. Fertilisers are a critical input for agriculture, and a shortage in...

-The Hindu 40 lakh students shifted from private to Government schools: report In the first academic year affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of students joining pre-primary classes was almost 30 lakh lower than in the previous year, while almost 20 lakh fewer students enrolled in Class 1, according to a report released by the Education Ministry on Wednesday. The Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) report for 2020-21 also...