Jharkhand's government schools have a massive teacher shortage, a survey by Gyan Vigyan Samiti Jharkhand has found. The survey was conducted in 138 primary and upper primary schools between September and October 2022 to assess their condition after the Covid-19 pandemic. Jharkhand's school system was shut for two years, among the longest in the world. Teachers told the surveyors they felt that most students had forgotten how to read and...
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Realistic analysis shows that the Indian economy has simply taken little steps in Q1 instead of a quantum leap
There is euphoria abound about India's growth performance during the first quarter of the current fiscal. As compared to the corresponding period last year, the year-on-year (y-o-y) GDP growth in the first quarter (Q1) of 2022-23 is down. However, one should take into account the fact that the high growth performance of the real GDP in Q1 of 2021-22 was due to the low base in the corresponding period of...
More »Interim Report of the Fact Finding Team Investigating the Stoppage of MGNREGA Wages in West Bengal
-Press release by NREGA Sangharsh Morcha dated 28 July 2022 Based on the findings NREGA Sangharsh Morcha put forth the following demands: 1. All the documents pertaining to correspondence between the Central Government and the State Government on MGNREGA since 2019, including the reports of central team visits and action taken, should be made public. 2. The Labour Budget for West Bengal for the FY 2022-23 has to be approved immediately by the...
More »Forget minimum wages, MGNREGA workers not even receiving notified wages in many states
Every year in the month of either February or March, the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) announces the notified MGNREGA wage rates (i.e., notified daily wage rates for MGNREGA workers) for various states and Union Territories (UTs) for the upcoming financial year. The MGNREGA rates are notified every year based on the increase in Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPI-AL). Like the previous years, in 2021 too, experts and civil...
More »Reality is stranger than the fad for online education -- most schools lack IT-infrastructure
Online teaching was perhaps the most preferred mode (of the policymakers) for imparting education to school children in the last two years when schools faced closures thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was promoted by both the Central and State Governments when mobility almost came to a standstill (or got restricted in comparison to normal times) during the last two years. However, various studies (a list of those studies is...
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