-Down to Earth Nine states, which have fertility rates well below the replacement rate, will have an Aged Population by 2030s India’s population growth rate will decline faster than assumed, according to the Economic Survey 2018-19. In fact, the fertility rate in many states has reached the replacement rate. “India is set to witness a sharp slowdown in population growth in the next two decades,” analysed the Economic Survey. "The country will enjoy...

-Hindustan Times The report, which was released in Delhi on Wednesday, called for policy interventions to improve the situation. Nearly three-fourths of five-year-old children and one-fourths of kids aged between 5 and 19 with disabilities in India are out of school, according to a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) report. The UNESCO had commissioned and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences prepared the report titled State of the Education Report for...

-The Hindu Revenues from appropriately charging personal transport can make public transport cheap Women may soon get to travel for free on buses and Metro trains in Delhi. This gender-based public transport fare subsidy programme, announced by the Aam Aadmi Party government, has not been tested anywhere in India in the past. Proponents claim that the policy will protect and liberate women. Critics argue that it is financially unviable and unfair. As...

In a recent blog post, Columbia University professor Arvind Panagariya mentions that the critics of the present Prime Minister of India failed to underscore ‘employment rate’ -- flip side of unemployment rate -- that stood at nearly 94 percent according to the report on Periodic Labour Force Survey 2017-18. A recent article by Dr. Vikas Rawal and Prachi Bansal, however, points out that in order to understand the problem of joblessness...

-The Hindu It is a national tragedy that women unable to find work are dropping out of the labour force If labour force survey data are to be believed, rural India is in the midst of a gender revolution in which nearly half the women who were in the workforce in 2004-5 had dropped out in 2017-18. The 61st round of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) recorded 48.5% rural women above...