The increase in the total number of suicides committed in India during 2020 in comparison to the previous years has hit the headlines recently. While some media commentators have stated that the economic distress (caused by job loss, income loss, failure of business, and growing hunger, among other things) in 2020 could have led to more suicides being committed, others have said that home isolation and deteriorating mental health (associated...

-Press release by National Coalition on the Education Emergency dated 2nd November, 2021 * India’s 250 million children returning to school after 18 months of school closures and devastating learning loss * The NCEE warns that re-opening schools cannot be “return to school” as normal, and lack of a comprehensive approach will deepen the existing education inequality * Education recovery efforts require a multi-year, radically new approach, NCEE says NEW DELHI: The overwhelming majority...

-Newsclick.in Just reopening schools won’t make an unequal education system more equal without public funding. It may speed up SARS-CoV-2 mutations and risk another brutal Covid-19 wave. The Delhi government recently decided to reopen schools and other educational institutions after a long Covid-19 related shutdown. Previously, several other states had taken similar decisions. Such decisions have been backed by several experts and activists, principally on two grounds. Firstly, socially and economically disadvantaged...

-TheWire.in Even in a state like Kerala, higher human development indices have not translated into equally solid gender outcomes. An interesting public policy question that has emerged over the last few years is why high human development indices are not translating into a better ‘gender status’ for Kerala. The Human Development Index (HDI) in Kerala (0.763) is the highest in India. The HDI is estimated as the geometric mean of three crucial aspects...

-TheWire.in Despite the state’s achievements in the education sector, the poor socio-political condition of marginalised groups keeps them out of the mainstream, with the pandemic making the situation worse. The 2021 Kerala Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) examinations recorded an all-time high pass percentage of 99.47% compared to earlier years. Although this calls for celebrations, a scrutiny of the results shows that students from the state’s tribal communities performed proportionately poorly. This...