-The Indian Express NABARD’s new survey offers a baseline to double farmers’ incomes. But is a survey done in a drought year a reliable yardstick? On August 16, NABARD presented the nation with a gift when it released the results of its All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey (NAFIS). Among other things, the survey estimates 2015-16 farmers’ income levels. In February 2016, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented his vision of doubling...

-The Indian Express Data on hate crime needs to be collected through recording bias indicators, group identity of victims and the nature of violence. In the midst of a perceptible rise in cases of lynching and mob violence against religious and caste minorities, the Supreme Court has called for firm action to prevent, remedy and punish these horrific acts. On July 17, the Court issued guidelines and also recommended that Parliament enact...

  A document of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) dated 25th June, 2018 says that the number of members subscribing to the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) scheme gives one an idea of the level of employment in the formal sector viz. mostly employment in establishments employing 20 or more persons (though EPF is applicable for certain organisations, which employ less than 20 persons, subject to certain conditions and...

-The Hindu Besides the missing informal sector, over-estimation of output growth also offers clues Are the latest employment estimates by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) factually correct? No. They are off the mark, and confined to the economy’s organised or formal sector, accounting at best for 15% of the workforce. Is there a paradox in high output growth rates and the marginal effect on employment? Probably not, if one acknowledges that GDP...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Congress on Monday asserted that boastful claims and sermons on the economy after the completion of four years of the Narendra Modi government were of little value as the lives of ordinary people had worsened because of reckless decisions and administrative incompetence at a time when the global economy was looking up. Former finance minister P. Chidambaram said at a news conference: "The RBI's Consumer Confidence Survey...