-The Indian Express Deliberations at UN show resolve to address public health challenges at highest level. On September 26, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) deliberated on how best to address a serious public health challenge — tuberculosis (TB). A day later, the world’s most esteemed political forum deliberated on combating non-communicable diseases (NCDs). For several years, WHO South East Asia and its member states have been ground zero in the battle against...

-Factchecker.in Mumbai: In 254 religious identity-based hate crimes reported in India between January 1, 2009, and October 29, 2018, at least 91 persons were killed and 579 were injured, according to a new FactChecker.in database, released on October 30, 2018. About 90% (229) of these attacks were reported after May 2014, when the current Bharatiya Janata Party-led government assumed power nationally. The Citizen’s Religious Hate-Crime Watch (Hate Crime Watch, in short) records...

-The Hindu Country’s high Population makes it vulnerable to an ecological crisis, says World Wide Fund for Nature India’s soil biodiversity is in grave peril, according to the Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas prepared by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The WWF’s ‘risk index’ for the globe — indicating threats from loss of above-ground diversity, pollution and nutrient over-loading, over-grazing, intensive agriculture, fire, soil erosion, desertification and climate change — shows India among...

-Frontline.inJean Dreze is a well-known Indian economist working in the field of "development economics". Born in Belgium, he studied mathematical economics at the University of Essex and completed his PhD from the Indian Statistical Institute (New Delhi) in 1982.He has taught at the London School of Economics and the Delhi School of Economics and is currently visiting professor at Ranchi University as well as honorary professor at the Delhi School...

For long, economists have argued among themselves whether income should be the only criterion for measuring poverty. After all, in real life a person can face multiple deprivations, say, in terms of access to education, health and living standards, among others. The multidimensional poverty index (MPI), which offers a valuable complement to traditional income-based poverty measures, was first introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report (HDR). The MPI looks at...