-Down to Earth New government report finds fewer indigenous individuals among these species, although experts blame non-registration of breeds as a reason. The origins of over half of India’s cattle, sheep, goats, horses, ponies, mules, donkeys and pigs are not known, according to a new report on the country’s livestock released by the government recently. The country’s water buffaloes too have fewer purebred individuals, although its camels still have that distinction according to...

-The Telegraph Civil Registration System figures are closest to the truth and should be considered authentic, say officials The Union health ministry’s National Family Health Survey 2019-21 has suggested that India’s births-and-deaths recording system registered only 71 per cent of the country’s deaths over the preceding three years, significantly lower than the 99.9 per cent cited by the ministry for 2020. The gap between the two numbers and the exceedingly high proportion of...

-TheWire.in The survey found that 83% of 636,699 households sampled had access to toilets, with greater accessibility in urban areas than in rural areas. New Delhi: Nearly one in five households in India practise open defecation, according to a health ministry report released on May 5, nearly two years after the Union government declared the country ‘open defecation free’. The report is part of the fifth edition of the National Family Health Survey...

-TheWire.in While the system was rightly designed to eliminate ghost beneficiaries, the impact of exclusion errors needs to be professionally and independently evaluated in detail. The direct benefit transfer (DBT) system has come to dominate the discourse on public service delivery in India. The existing rhetoric around its efficacy being one of anti-corruption, cost efficiency, and elimination of middlemen. Payments under DBT are made to low-income households using an elaborate, digitised system...

-TheWire.in A recent research paper examining consumption expenditure and landholdings in Uttar Pradesh sheds new light. Mumbai: For years, researchers and academics have studied how wealth and income inequality in India is, more often than not, split along caste lines, with upper castes cornering a larger piece of the pie. However, the measure of their enrichment and the consequent impoverishment and exclusion of Muslim Dalits and Hindu Dalits has received less attention. A...