-The Telegraph With a per capita income at a whopping $2554, poverty is down; exports are up and GDP is fueled by both agriculture and manufacturing; but the downside is a growing nexus between politics and business There is justifiable pride all around at Bangladesh’s remarkable performance in both the economic and social development dimensions. “Pakistan and India don’t matter. We have done better than both!” The figures speak for themselves. The renowned...

-Scroll.in Frustrated by rules they see as onerous, a bunch of beauticians are speaking up – and sometimes being heard. Nidhi Chander* was full of hope until five years ago. That was when she gave up her job as a beautician at a unisex salon in Pitampura, Delhi, where she was earning Rs 20,000 a month, to work with Urban Clap. She believed the home services start-up would give her the freedoms...

-TheWire.in There is a need to set right the ‘national multidimensional poverty index’ framework to capture the true story of deprivation. The global sustainable development agenda demands that countries measure the population living in poverty and reduce it by at least half by 2030. So, in order to monitor progress on this critical development indicator, UNDP and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) compute what is called the ‘Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)’...

-TheWire.in A ground report from two fishing villages, one in East Medinipur and the other in the Sundarban, reflects how various expressions of climate change leave a mark on health and wellbeing, especially of women. Jharkhali/ Nijkasba, West Bengal: It is easy to consider the south of West Bengal as an unwieldy side of the world that is acutely stricken by the climate crisis. Buzzwords like ‘salinity’, ‘storm surge’, ‘water-level rise’ and ‘ocean...

-The Hindu Business Line At present, panchayats make no contribution to the design of schemes. Their autonomy is negligible. This needs to change Decentralisation has long been recognised as an efficient instrument for promoting economic democracy, and delivering services to meet the needs of people. There are three different channels for decentralisation — political, administrative and fiscal. Political decentralisation promotes trust and cooperation between government agencies and citizens. Administrative decentralisation enables authority...