-The Indian Express A reworking of curriculum and activities is urgently needed for the age band from four to eight. ASER 2019 report underlines this While the importance of good early childhood education has been known for a long time, the draft New Education Policy (released in June 2019) links the “severe learning crisis” to what goes on with young children in India. The voluminous policy document points out that close...

-Down to Earth Without empowering women in farming by recognising them as farmers and giving them land rights, agriculture can’t be sustained and so can’t the economy In Maharashtra’s 2019 Assembly elections, the Vidarbha constituencies presented interesting trends. The region is important politically not just for the stalwarts who contest from there, but also for the Development issues it represents. More than three lakh farmers have committed suicide in India between 1991 and...

-The Pioneer All stakeholders must engage in educating the population about sexual and reproductive health and highlight the multi-sectoral approach that will be necessary for improving adolescent health and breaking inter-generational cycles of disease Investing in adolescent health is essential to realising multiple sustainable Development goals set by the UN, to be achieved by 2030. Given that India houses more than 253 million adolescents, it is pertinent to realise that neglecting their...

-Down to Earth Millions of Indian households transfer poverty to the next generation, making poverty eradication nearly impossible Something that has haunted me through my 22 years of reporting the rural India is how some people in certain regions always remain poor. I have visited them multiple times for various assignments, but have always found them talking about poverty. Like me, they too always wonder: “Why do we remain poor?” I have mostly reported...

-Down to Earth Latest NITI Aayog counts no state as ‘achiever’; overall performance of most ‘performing’, ‘laggard’ states towards cutting poverty dipped With every fifth Indian still below the poverty line, the country needs to take huge strides to alleviate poverty. For most states, though, it did not seem the priority, going by the poverty score card in the SDG Index 2019-20 released by the NITI Aayog just before 2019 ended. The index...