India, March 20 -- Finance Minister Arun Jaitley dubbed the "108 purported economists" alleging government interference in statistical data as a "fake campaign", saying these compulsive contrarians have repeatedly signed memorandums of manufactured political issues against the present regime.
He was referring to a appeal made by 108 economists and social scientists including Jean Dreze (Allahabad University), Emily Breza (Harvard University), Satish Deshpande (Delhi University), Esther Duflo (MIT, US) and Jayati Ghosh (JNU) last week, expressing concerns over "political interference" in influencing statistical data in India.
They had called for restoration of "institutional independence" and integrity to the statistical organisations in t...