-The Hindu It’s time to debate the modalities of the next Census, given the earlier confusion over caste data. As the 2011 Census approached, demands for inclusion of data on caste in Census reached a crescendo. P. Chidambaram, the Union Home Minister at the time, was opposed to collecting caste data and blocked it by claiming that it was logistically impossible for the Census, but caste information could be collected via the...

-TheWire.in Incorrectly listed as 'Korwas' instead of 'Pahari Korwas' on caste certificates, members of the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group continue to face roadblocks to schemes, subsidised healthcare and government jobs. Surguja (Chattisgarh): Sanak Sai, a nine-year-old Pahari Korwa from Chhattisgarh’s Govindpur village, met with an accident on May 28 while riding a bicycle. Suffering from a fractured jaw and a few broken teeth, he was referred to the district hospital for a...

-Livemint.com Odisha is a front-runner in women’s land ownership, much of it owing to government policies from the 1980s. But has ownership led to empowerment? Surrounded by sun-drenched paddy fields interspersed with jackfruit and banana trees, Sanakusupadu is a hamlet in Odisha’s tribal-dominated district of Rayagada. Here, almost every married woman owns land. No matter how small the holding, land documents of the 62 households in this village bear the names of the...

-The Hindu Business Line The Ayushman Bharat programme must aim to reverse poverty caused by healthcare expenses The state of India’s healthcare system is somewhat dichotomous — the country is a global supplier of life-saving, affordable and good quality generic medicines, yet lakhs of families are driven into poverty because they are forced to spend much of their earnings and savings on medications to treat chronic and life-threatening diseases. The poor, particularly,...

-TheWire.in Has Switzerland’s eagerness to export its vocational training and education model to India led to an unsatisfactory compromise that ultimately hurts the battle against poverty: granting a private company exclusive rights to the curriculum developed with Swiss taxpayers’ money? This year, India and Switzerland will celebrate 70 years of a Friendship Treaty that was signed by the two countries in 1948. A decade ago, the 60th anniversary of the Treaty was...