Statistical clarity feeds successful governance

India's statistical system is under the PMO's lens. Given recent data dissonance, it evidently needs a relook. The country's view of itself is too hazy in these digital times of sharp resolution

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Itis axiomatic that a country needs highquality data to guide policy, a clear picture of itself created by statistics, and it's ironic that we have fallen behind the curve on ensuring this for a digital age of precision.

In our early decades of freedom, India was known for innovation on this score, given the challenges of placing a vast land of mass poverty and tricky diversity under the lens for data collection, slicing and dicing. Today, however, we have a hazier view of our progress than we should in the 2020s, given the modern tools available, with official readings of key variables contested by critics. To be sure, no complex formula captures the absolute truth. The best we can hope for is a high-rez snapshot, in contrast with one that is too blurry (or badly distorted by dodgy inputs), as an approximation of reality.