-The Hindu Analysing data without providing sufficient context is dangerous An inherent challenge in journalism is to meet deadlines without compromising on quality, while sticking to the word limit. However, brevity takes a toll when it comes to reporting on surveys, indexes, and big data. Let me examine three sets of stories which were based on surveys and carried prominently by this newspaper, to understand the limits of presenting data without providing...

-The Financial Express Over 14 crore households who cultivate on land owned by others under a formal lease agreement or even under a temporary arrangement overseen by the gram panchayats or other official functionaries may soon start getting assorted sops doled out to “farmers” by the government just as their land-owing counterparts do. According to official sources, the definition of farmer will be changed via a gazzette notification to include cultivators...

-The Hindu Hundreds of government schools, especially in tribal-dominated districts, have been shut down over the past year. Elizabeth Kuruvilla reports on the closures, the mushrooming of private schools, and the battles waged by tribal villages to keep state-funded local schools open It’s a little past four in the afternoon, the time when schools ring their closing bells in the Hatsesikhal cluster of odisha’s tribal-dominated Rayagada district. Just before Sekhal Primary School...

-The Pioneer Ranchi (Jharkhand): Annual Status of Education Report (ASER-2017) released on Tuesday covering 28 districts of 24 States on ‘Beyond Basics’- A survey of rural India youths, presented a gloomy picture of Jharkhand on a few basic parameters in comparison with the districts of Bihar, odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh. The survey based on 4 As (Activity, Ability, Awareness, Aspirations) covering the age group 14-18 years, Jharkhand lags behind in enrollment...

-Down to Earth That explains why agrarian riots have increased by over 600 per cent in the last three years Whenever agriculture makes headlines, ironically, they hide more stories of distress. For sixth consecutive year, horticulture (fruits and vegetables) production has outstripped food grain production. Apparently, it is encouraging news given that farmers earn more from vegetables and fruits than food grains. But around the same time, reports of farmers dumping...