-The Hindu After India’s economy collapsed in the first quarter of 2020-21 following the nationwide lockdown imposed to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, some economic indicators from September and October, from power consumption to GST collections, suggest that things are improving. But is this a sustainable recovery under way, or just an expression of pent-up demand combined with India’s festive-season spending? In a conversation moderated by Vikas Dhoot, Naushad Forbes and M....

Multidimensional poverty is about non-monetary poverty and is strongly associated with the challenges of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although previously defined only in monetary terms, poverty is now understood to include the lived reality of people’s experiences and the multiple deprivations they face. India’s multidimensional headcount ratio (H) i.e. the proportion or incidence of people (within a given population) who experience multiple deprivations has reduced from 55.1 percent to...

  Among other things, one of the reasons (given by some economists) behind low labour force participation rate (LFPR) of women vis-à-vis men in the country is that more young girls are educating themselves, causing an improvement in the secondary and tertiary enrolment rates. It means that more Indian women are staying out of the labour force in order to continue their education – secondary education and / or college &...

-Newsclick.in Devastated by the pandemic and lockdown, people are now facing a back-breaking inflation, especially in everyday food items like vegetables. In just the past month, inflation (annual price rise) has zoomed up, delivering a body blow to family budgets. Recently released government data shows that retail inflation rate hit an eight-month high of 7.34%, up from 6.69% in August. This is general inflation, including all items of consumption. For food items, the...

-The Hindu As for milk and milk products, only 8.7% in rural and 14.3% of the population in urban areas consumed as per the recommended intakes. Hyderabad: City-based Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Nutrition (ICMR-NIN) has initiated ‘Mapping of nutrition and health status – A national level participatory real-time data generation programme’ to develop a mobile-based device to be used by nutrition researchers at district level nationwide during this ongoing...