ECONOMIC statistics are a public good. They are a vital necessity for policy-making and informed public discourse in democracies where citizens seek accountability from its government. The use of scientific methods for collection, and estimation and their timely dissemination, therefore, form vital public services.

THE Modi government’s disastrous economic policies have pushed India into a furnace of joblessness. Latest CMIE data shows that the unemployment rate in India was 8.6 per cent in the first week of February 2019. This is the highest level since September 2016, that is, in 127 weeks. In February, a report prepared by the NSSO was leaked by a newspaper which showed that the unemployment rate in 2017-18 had hit a 45-year high of 6.1 per cent.

THE minutes of the board meeting of the Reserve Bank of India just prior to the announcement that currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination were being demonetised are now available in the public domain, thanks to an RTI query. And what they reveal is the abysmal state of decision-making on economic policy that prevails under the Modi government.To be sure, economic decision-making has always been informed by class bias; but that is not what I am referring to here.

THE country has entered into the electoral battle for the 17th general elections.  This is not an ordinary election where the ruling party of the day is judged on the basis of its delivery of its promises made at the time of the last general elections alone.  The balance sheet of its betrayals is often the main issue of electoral discourse.   These elections, however, are the most crucial one in the history of independent India.  Why is it so?