-TheWire.in Most of the ‘reforms’ that are being introduced to address poor delivery of social services are silent on the issue of inadequate human resources, among other shortfalls in capacity. The poor performance of the public sector especially in education, health and other social services has been the subject of a lot of debates in the last few decades. The dominant narrative has attributed implementation failures to corruption, lack of accountability, poor...

-Livemint.com The production of ‘mahua’ is finally entering the formal economy as new initiatives seek to upscale this indigenous drink, selling it across the country and even the globe It is a cloudy morning in Nangur village in Bastar district, Chattisgarh. It is a settlement of a little over 400 families, considered fairly large in these parts. We make a bumpy journey down a narrow, unpaved road intermittently shaded by sargi (sal)...

  Like last year, this year too journalists and media persons have compared India's Global Hunger Index (GHI) ranking vis-à-vis its position in previous years. Even the social media is buzzing with commentaries on the fallen GHI ranking of the country. The question remains whether such a comparison is possible. The newly released report entitled 2018 Global Hunger Index: Forced Migration and Hunger clearly says that the GHI scores are comparable within...

-News18.com All the women yatris who are currently traveling through different parts of India and spreading the message of peace will reach Delhi by 13 October, where a day-long event will be held to celebrate peace and harmony. Last month, five minibusses, with twenty-five women in each of them, started their journeys from five different states of India – Kashmir, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Assam, and Uttar Pradesh. These 5 different groups of...

-TheWire.in In villages where the number of households as per the baseline survey is less than the actual households, the toilet building exercise poses an allocation challenge: Who gets the limited number of toilets? Barabanki/ Meerut/ Lucknow/ Shamli: Usha Devi is 24, belongs to a so-called lower caste. She has five children, the eldest is seven-years-old and the youngest one month. Her husband works as a labourer at a brick kiln...