Contrary to the rising economic distress on the ground since the last few years, the official press release related to the fourth Annual Report on the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) at first glance seems to give a rosy picture about the employment situation in India.  Defined as the percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in the labour force, the unemployment rate in usual status (principal activity status + subsidiary economic activity status)...

-The Hindu The survey was done in 4,355 cities and took 1.14 crore citizens’ feedback The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry on Tuesday launched the annual sanitation survey of cities with the theme of ‘waste to wealth’. The Swachh Survekshan 2023 under the Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0 will be the eighth edition of the national survey of cleanliness in cities. “Designed with the theme of ‘Waste to Wealth’ as its driving philosophy,...

-Down to Earth The city is still grappling with source segregation, door-to-door collection, waste treatment and processing and on-site organic waste management India’s greatest cleanliness survey, Swachh Survekshan, began in 73 cities in 2016. Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad was ranked 67th in its inaugural survey. Cut to 2019, Ghaziabad was declared the fastest-growing city and ranked 13th in the same survey under cities with a population of more than a million. The city’s waste...

The rise in COVID-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths compelled many state governments to impose local level lockdowns during April-May 2021. As of 20th April, 2021, partial lockdowns were noticed in 10 states across the country and complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi. As of 8th May, 2021, nearly the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of either partial lockdowns and night curfews or complete...

-The Hindu The campaign to end open defecation can succeed only if it takes communities with it India’s declaration on the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi that its rural areas are now open defecation-free will be acknowledged around the world as a milestone in its developmental journey. Cleanliness and sanitation were central to Gandhi’s concerns for his vast number of impoverished countrymen, and should ideally have been pursued zealously by governments...