The big newspapers are Indian, as much as they are ethnic or regional in character. Their choice of news reflects the upward mobility of middle class India. This report is based on a recently concluded survey of what newspapers covered over a two month period in late 2010. Our study took ten newspapers in five states: Hindustan Times (Delhi), Dainik Jagran (Delhi), Telegraph, Ananda Bazar Patrika, Deccan Chronicle, Dinathanti, the Hindu...

India’s population of 1.2 billion, according to the 2011 decennial census, is growing at the century’s slowest rate of 17.6 per cent — four percentage points lower than in the previous decade. India is approaching, but has not yet reached, the replacement level. This means India’s population will stabilise somewhere between 1.5 billion and 1.6 billion by 2030, making it the world’s most populous country. It is hard to discern...

Even as India celebrates an impressive jump in the literacy figures in the past decade, a staggering eight million children are still out of school. Worse, 21 per cent of the teachers at the primary level are without adequate qualification and as many as 9 per cent schools have only the one teacher. Releasing the achievements in the first year of implementation of The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory...

Authorities in Chandigarh don't seem to be doing enough for raising literacy rate as compared to other states and union territories. In 2011, the city came down to eighth position on the all-India literacy list. In the 2001 census, it had the sixth highest literacy rate in the country. This happened in spite of increase in overall literacy here. Though Chandigarh has achieved the Planning Commission target of 85% literacy, it couldn't...

With the provisional figures for the 2011 Census sounding an alarm over the falling child sex ratio, it's a good time to look at who really is responsible for this. Who's committing female feticide and infanticide? Available figures show that it's not the poorest and least literate people and communities who are responsible; to the contrary, the reverse is true. The 2011 numbers show that the states with the worst child...