-The Hindu Business Line The development economist, now part of Tamil Nadu’s Economic Advisory Council, says that public expenditure on health is just 0.6 per cent of the state domestic product, one of the lowest ratios among Indian states * Universal quality education, health care and social security are still distant goals * A well-designed system of emergency cash transfers would be quite useful in this situation of recurrent crises, which may last...

-The Hindu We need to address inequality, and social and gender discrimination, says Poonam Muttreja, Population Foundation of India In the recent past, States like Uttar Pradesh and Assam, and and Union Territories like Lakshadweep, have proposed to implement a two-child norm as a pre-condition for getting government jobs or to get nominated or elected to Panchayat elections. What has been the impact of such policies so far? Jagriti Chandra interviewed executive...

The rise in COVID-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths compelled many state governments to impose local level lockdowns during April-May 2021. As of 20th April, 2021, partial lockdowns were noticed in 10 states across the country and complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi. As of 8th May, 2021, nearly the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of either partial lockdowns and night curfews or complete...

-CBGAIndia.in India’s response to the pandemic has depended heavily on the exploited labour of women workers, most of them from marginalised backgrounds. These are ASHAs or Accredited Social Health Activists, the cadre of frontline health workers that has been mobilised for everything from door-to-door surveys, distributing medicine kits, measuring oxygen saturation, monitoring containment zones and spreading awareness about vaccines. 70,000 such women recently went on strike in Maharashtra demanding higher pay,...

-IndiaSpend.com To fight hunger and distress due to the pandemic, India must universalise foodgrain distribution, expand the food basket in its rations scheme and provide cash transfers, activist Anjali Bhardwaj tells us in this interview Bengaluru: The pandemic-induced lockdowns have had a profound impact on livelihoods, affecting poor Indians' food intake, studies show. In October 2020, more than half the respondents of a Hunger Survey said their rice/wheat consumption had declined during...