-The Indian Express Budget needs to ramp up spending on health and education. pandemic has enhanced inequalities, shown up absence of safety nets. India is committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, and social sector development is important in reaching them. Progress in this sector has intrinsic (for its own sake) and instrumental (for higher growth) value. It is needed even to build a $5 trillion economy faster. Inequalities...

-The Indian Express With the figures indicating that the job crisis triggered by Covid-19 continues, Kerala economy may be facing long-term impact, with remittances from abroad, mainly West Asia, its lifeline. Thiruvananthapuram: AMIDST the Covid-19 pandemic-induced economic crisis, 5.52 lakh people who have returned to Kerala from abroad since May last year have given loss of jobs as reason, according to government data. As per figures compiled by the Department of Non-Resident Keralites...

-Down to Earth This weak link between growth in income and nutritional outcomes requires the attention of policy makers The Covid pandemic reminds us that we may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. Low-income countries like India faced a multi-pronged crisis during the pandemic — containing the infections while being home to 195.9 million of the 821 million undernourished people in the world. Prevalence of undernourishment in India...

Commenting on the recently released fifth round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data for 17 states and five Union Territories (UTs) in an article published in The Indian Express (dated 6th January, 2021), Arvind Subramanian and his co-authors have stated that India has made progress on certain outcomes, including infant mortality rate (IMR), under-five mortality rate (U5MR) and neonatal mortality rate (NNMR). Relying on various rounds of NFHS data,...

-IndiaSpend.com Many health issues were neglected as COVID-19 hogged global attention in 2020. Apart from the COVID-19 vaccine, what other health issues should be in focus in 2021? New Delhi: COVID-19 demanded the single-minded focus of India's entire healthcare infrastructure all through 2020. In fact, the pandemic hogged so much attention across all aspects of our lives that most other issues of public health were put on the back-burner. Issues such as tackling...