-Livemint.com Haryana’s sex ratio at birth is at 903, a first in a decade, but the scheme has made no impact in certain parts Rohtak (Haryana): On 22 January last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (save the daughter, educate the daughter) campaign to improve India’s child sex ratio and promote gender equality. Appropriately enough, he flagged off the campaign in Panipat, Haryana, which had the worst...

-Livemint.com Despite its positive features, the scheme may not be adequate to tackle pollution in the national capital Delhi’s unique experiment of having odd-even numbered vehicles off the Roads on alternate days to combat high levels of air pollution has ignited a debate on the merits and efficacy of the policy. A recent Indian Express article, co-authored by US-based scholars Michael Greenstone, Santosh Harish, Anant Sudarshan and Rohini Pande, argued that the odd-even...

-Scroll.in Institutions that provide cheap or free meals are not mere populism – they are vital for the food security of people on the margins. My first experience of a “community kitchen” was in Brazil where we were taken to try out a meal at the Popular Restaurant in Lauros de Freitas. The serpentine queue outside it surprising initially, seemed entirely unexceptional once we had been served: for one real (approximately Rs...

-The Indian Express The odd-even pilot reduced hourly particulate air pollution concentrations by 10-13 per cent. But for the longer run, a congestion-pricing programme may be better Delhi’s ambitious odd-even pilot experiment to reduce the number of cars on the Road, and pollution in the air, has come to an end — at least for now. But the question remains: Was it successful? Answering this question is challenging. Air pollution data is...

-Livemint.com It’s time to look at the deleterious environmental impact of subsidies so as to attain correct pricing of resources A few days before Delhi’s odd-even rule—a Road rationing scheme in which odd- and even-numbered cars were allowed to ply on Roads on alternate days—was to be implemented, Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia appeared on a television channel to answer questions on the rule. During the show, Sisodia admitted that the...