-Down to Earth Blog The district set a record for creating 1,121 farm ponds in 30 days in September 2021, in line with the recently launched state climate mission In September 2021, Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvannamalai district set a record for creating 1,121 farm ponds in 30 days by leveraging the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The initiative’s aim was to ensure adequate water for agricultural and domestic purposes throughout the...

After the release of the second phase data of the National Family Health Survey Fifth Round (NFHS-5), media commentators and experts have written that the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) for India has gone down just below the replacement-level fertility. The TFR for the entire nation was 2.2 in 2015-16, which decreased to 2.0 in 2019-21.   According to the United Nations, the replacement-level fertility is reached when the TFR of a...

-The Hindu ‘It is planning to develop minimum standards to enhance availability’ The Tamil Nadu Government will improve suo motu publication of data under the Right to Information Act on the websites of government departments, said Minister for Finance and Human Resources Management Palanivel Thiaga Rajan here on Monday. To a question raised during the discussion following the launch of the book Whole Numbers and Half Truths, authored by journalist S. Rukmini, he...

-TheFederal.in Fund allocation could be done much more effectively with the availability of current data, said Palanivel Thiaga Rajan The Tamil Nadu government has scope for conducting accurate state-specific sample surveys, similar to the ones done by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) to improve availability of data for taking policy decisions, said Minister for Finance and Human Resources Management Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, in Chennai on Monday (December 6). The Tamil Nadu minister...

-The Hindu India must invest robustly in the world’s largest social programme on early childhood services Being closed since the April 2020-lockdown, anganwadis are slowly reopening. Those in Karnataka, Bihar and Tamil Nadu are opening or considering opening shortly. As part of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), anganwadis play a crucial role in supporting households, particularly from low-income families, by providing childcare, health and nutrition, education, supplementary nutrition, immunisation, health check-up...