Australian Broadcasting Corporation Poonam Gond is learning to describe her pain by numbers. Zero means no pain and 10 is agony. Poonam was at seven late last month. "I have never known zero pain," she said, sitting in the plastic chair where she spends most of her days. The 19-year-old has sickle cell disease, a genetic blood disorder. Her medicine ran out weeks ago. Poonam's social worker, Geeta Aayam, nods as she...

Scroll.in Though the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act) has refocussed attention on school education in recent years, some fundamental problems continue to plague the system. Despite the constitutional and legal obligations of governments, education budgets have remained modest and woefully inadequate to requirements. While there has been a reasonable expansion of coverage and enrolment in schools, the fundamental issue of poor learning outcomes, especially...

KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

National Law School of India University, Bengaluru What is the status of hunger and malnutrition in India? The year 2023 marks a decade since the enactment of the National Food Security Act (NFSA). The Act aims to provide food and nutritional security by ensuring access to quality food at affordable prices. However, despite 10 years of food security being a legal right and the availability of sufficient quantities of food grains, India...

A new study suggests that climate change-induced heatwaves in India can hinder or reverse the country’s progress in fulfilling the sustainable development goals (SDGs) Recurrent heatwaves have greater socio-economic impact in India than previously known. A study published in PLOS Climate suggested that heatwaves made more likely by climate change may impede India’s progress toward its sustainable development goals.  India has committed to achieve 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), including...