-IdeasForIndia.in The Mandal Commission and Sachar Committee reports, among others, have indicated the existence of caste inequalities within the four major caste groups. However, data on this subject remain limited. Using data from a novel 2014-2015 survey conducted in Uttar Pradesh, this article shows that within-group inequalities among upper castes are significantly less, relative to the within-group inequalities observed among both Hindu and Muslim OBCs and Dalits. Broadly, four social groups –...

-PTI/ Outlook India The country's R-value, steadily INCreasing over the last few weeks, is 1.07 for the week between April 12-18, according to Sitabhra Sinha. In the preceding April 5-11 week, it was 0.93. India's effective reproduction number (R) for Covid, an indicator of how quickly the infection is spreading, has INCreased to over one for the first time sINCe January, estimates a researcher from Chennai's Institute of Mathematical Sciences. The country's R-value,...

-Scroll.in Anganwadi staff are vital to ensuring the wellbeing of India’s children. Yet in 2006, the Supreme Court refused to recognise them as government employees. The government of Karnataka needed a hundred women. It was 1982, the new Integrated Child Development Services scheme was about to launch in the state, and according to the advertisement in the local newspaper, these work opportunities were available specifically for women who had completed Class 10. Ameenabi...

-The Telegraph Centre questions each estimation exercise, says the numbers have emerged from extrapolation, limited datasets and unproven assumptions New Delhi: A top public health expert has urged the government to help resolve the intense debate over India’s Covid-19 death toll by using the population census later this year to directly count the dead over the past two years. Prabhat Jha, professor at the Centre for Global Health, University of Toronto, Canada, who...

-Down to Earth States accuse the Centre of not taking any initiative to help them INCrease production of summer crops   Agricultural experts have warned that an unusually hot March and April this year may cause damage to summer crops, which are grown in the Indian subcontinent between ‘Rabi’ (winter) and ‘Kharif’ (monsoon) crops. States have also accused the Centre of not taking any initiative to help them INCrease production of summer crops...