-The Hindu India needs a top statistician to frame data-based policies for welfare and development In Poverty and Famines (1981), Amartya Sen argued that poor distribution of food, wartime inflation, speculative buying and panic hoarding were important reasons for the devastating Bengal famine of 1943, while Madhusree Mukerjee, in her 2010 book, Churchill’s Secret War, wrote of the role of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, his wartime Cabinet’s decisions and “denial policy”...

-Livemint.com India’s south and west are now at replacement fertility, but it will be several decades before the country’s population starts shrinking Gujarat has now joined 13 other states at or below replacement fertility, new data from the Sample Registration System (SRS) for 2018 shows. Bihar is now the only Indian state where a woman as of 2018 was likely to have over three children in her lifetime. The SRS is a large-scale...

-Hindustan Times The World Health Organisation has estimated that between 81,000 and 138,000 people die from snake bites globally each year, and of these, nearly half are in India. Nearly 1.2 million people died from snake bite deaths in India between 2000 and 2019, and many of these fatalities can be avoided by adopting a series of targeted precautions, a new study has pointed out. Published in the open access journal eLife, the...

-The Hindu Activists demand doubling of 100 days per household limit At least 1.4 lakh poor rural households have already completed their quota of 100 days of work under MGNREGA in the first three months of the year, and will not be eligible for further benefits under the rural employment guarantee scheme for the rest of the year. Another seven lakh households have completed 80 days and are on the verge of...

-NDTV On March 26, the Finance Minister made the announcement of doubling the entitlements of PDS ration card holders for the months of April-June. Since then, it has been clear that the PDS has served as a lifeline for millions of Indians who were left high and dry when the sudden and complete lockdown had been announced two days prior. As we approached the end of June, pressure had been mounting to...