Editor,
I would like to throw some light regarding employment and unemployment statistics in India. The Government of India through the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) conducts the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) annually. The annual reports as well as the Quarterly Bulletins are available in the official website of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (www.mospi.gov.in). For all states including Meghalaya, the latest available data pertain to the period July 2022 – June 2023. For this period the unemployment rate for Meghalaya stood at 6% whereas for all India it was 3.2%. This is the unemployment rate according to the usual status (principal status plus subsidiary status) or the adjusted unemployment rate. Principal status means the status (working, unemployed or not in the labour force) in which a person is for the major part (more than 180 days) of the year. Subsidiary status means the status in which a person is for a lesser part (less than 180 days) of the year. The labour force includes all those who are working in a principal as well as subsidiary capacity plus the unemployed. The unemployment rate is the percentage of those who are seeking work or available for work out of the labour force. It excludes those who are unemployed for the most part of the year but working in a subsidiary or marginal capacity. Considering that most of the poor and unemployed cannot afford to remain unemployed for long, and therefore, they would work in any kind of job that they could find, the official 6% unemployment rate can be considered as an underestimate of the extent of unemployment in Meghalaya.
The PLFS 2022-23 was conducted in 104 villages and 56 urban frame survey blocks or census enumeration blocks (CEB) in Meghalaya. The CMIE was conducted in 44 villages and 21 CEBs in Meghalaya in 2020. During lockdowns the interviews were conducted telephonically. Although I do not have the sample size for the latest wave of survey, there is no reason to suggest that the sample size has increased. Although the CMIE has a selected sample size of about 170,000 households, the response rates range from 70-80 %. In contrast the number of households actually surveyed in PLFS 2022-23 was 101,655 in the entire country. I would also like to add that there are a number of surveys conducted by NSSO like the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey 2022-23 and the Multiple Indicator Survey 2020-21 which provide information regarding the level of living of the people of India besides other surveys.
Yours etc.,
Dr. V. Pala
Department of Economics NEHU,
Shillong
Women’s safety across India paramount
Editor,
In her article, titled, “Women’s Safety: Enough is Enough”, dated August 28, President of India, Droupadi Murmu, while writing on the Kolkata rape-murder case of August 9, rightly acknowledged, “What is more depressing is the fact that it was not the only incident of its kind; it is part of a series of crimes against women.” The following incidents are the testimonies. In June 2017, a 17-year-old girl was raped in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh. A former BJP MLA was convicted for the rape. He was also found guilty in the death of the victim’s father.
In January 2018, an eight-year-old girl was allegedly abducted, drugged, gang-raped, tortured for a long time, and then bludgeoned to death in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir. As per the report, two serving BJP state ministers were seen attending a rally organised in support of the accused in this crime.
In September 2020, a 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. She died two weeks later. The brother of the victim alleged that she was cremated without the family’s consent.
Those incidents happened before Droupadi Murmu became President of India on July 25, 2022. But, similar incidents happened after that where her statement of August 28, could have made a difference.
Eleven convicts with the charge of gang-rape and murder of seven members of Bilkis Bano’s family were greeted with garlands and sweets by some members of the Viswa Hindu Parishad when the convicts were released from jail in August 2022. A 19-year-old receptionist at a resort near Rishikesh, was allegedly killed by the resort owner and two accomplices in September 2022. The main accused in this case is the son of a former BJP Minister in Uttarakhand.
In April 2023, a 13-year-old gang-rape survivor’s parents were attacked by her rapists in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, and then her thatched house was torched, and two infants were flung into the flames.
A video went viral in May 2023. It showcased the condition of women in Manipur. The video showed two disrobed women being paraded and assaulted before being taken to a field by a mob of Meitei men.
Many horrific incidents happened in August 2024, apart from the August 9, Kolkata rape-murder case. On August 8, the mutilated body of a nurse at a private hospital was found in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand. She was allegedly strangled to death, and her head was smashed with a stone after being sexually assaulted when she was returning home from work.
On August 12, the body of a 14-year-old Dalit girl was found in a semi-naked condition in a pond in Muzaffarpur district, Bihar. She was allegedly gang-raped and killed.
On August 13, a teenage girl had allegedly been gang-raped inside a stationary private bus at the inter-state bus terminus in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
On August 22, the body of a 10-year-old girl was found in Kolhapur, Maharashtra. She had allegedly been raped and murdered. Again, on August 22, a minor girl had allegedly been gang-raped in Assam’s Dhing.
On August 24, two minor girls were allegedly sexually assaulted in Badlapur, Maharashtra. Unlike Kolkata, the other incidents happened under various “double engine” governments. But that should not stop anyone from speaking against them.
The rally in support of the gang-rape and murder accused as happened in Kathua and honouring of gang-rape and murder convicts in public as was done with the convicts of Bilkis Bano case are simply more than enough for our imagination.
Yours etc.,
Sujit De,
Kolkata
Memory worth sharing
Editors.
The write up, ‘Inclusion of Khasi Language in 8th schedule:Resolution of 1976,” by G Allan Lyndem made interesting reading with the mention of some widely spoken Khasi words and their meanings. Going through some Khasi words reminded me of that forgotten past when I had memorised some lines in Khasi written in red in the MTC buses of those days. The lines printed in the buses in those days are vivid in my memory. Some of the lines include – “Ki nong shong kali khlem tiket, yn pynshitom, da ka ain. Wat tah shun. The lines may not be correctly spelt by me as I cannot speak Khasi but these lines I can recite even today effortlessly.
Yours etc.,
Deepak Chhetry
Tura.