The Human Development Index (HDI) in the country rose by 21 per cent, says a report while cautioning that health, nutrition and sanitation remained key challenges for India. India Human Development Report, 2011, prepared by the government's Institute of Applied Manpower Research, placed Kerala on top of the index for achieving highest literacy rate, quality health services and consumption expenditure of people. Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Goa were placed at second, third...

Narendra Modi’s Gujarat is the only developed state in the country where the percentage of malnourished children is higher than the national average, a government report released today said. Gujarat has 44.6 per cent underweight children, compared to the country’s average of nearly 42 per cent. Six other states have a higher-than-average proportion of malnourished children but all of these are poor — Madhya Pradesh (60 per cent), followed by Jharkhand (56.5),...

-The Business Standard   A day before the National Development Council is scheduled to meet and possibly debate on the poverty line and the Food Security Bill, the second India Human Development Report -2011 has said India progressed well in social development front, with higher enrollment rates in education, and a shift towards social inclusion of marginalised communities and minorities. The report, by the Institute of Applied Manpower Research, an autonomous body under...

-The Hindustan Times   The World Bank and International Monetary Fund just concluded their annual meetings in Washington. At an event on nutrition in South Asia, the evidence presented was clear and astonishing. On the one hand, South Asia has experienced robust economic growth averaging 6% a year over the past 20 years. On the other hand, the region continues to have unacceptably high rates of malnutrition with Bangladesh and India having...

In the brown smog that covers Manesar this late autumn, large trucks that pack half-a-dozen cars each into their containers queue on the broken highway from Delhi to Jaipur and park any which way they can. Their drivers loll in the teashops and dhabas. Few know when their containers will be loaded with Maruti Suzuki’s deliverables: cars named Swift and Dzire and A-Star and Sx4 that have been booked by tens...