-The Times of India New Delhi: They may be some of the most backward states in the country, but when it comes to women empowerment these states have topped the charts and are well ahead of their more prosperous counterparts like Gujarat, Punjab, Goa, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. One of the parameters to judge women empowerment is by knowing how many are functioning as elected representatives. The government data on elected women...

-Economic and Political Weekly Ashish Bose coined the acronym BIMARU in the early 1980s to describe the backwardness of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh relative to the best-performing states in terms of demographic indicators. This article extends Bose's analysis to recent years to ascertain if the proposition is still valid. To retain the integrity of the original exercise, the same indicators examined by Bose have been analysed, as far...

-Zee News Agriculture is consistently losing its importance in India's economic growth. The agriculture sector contributes to just 15 percent of India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but over 50 percent of the population is still dependent on it. The farm sector, including forestry and fishing, grew by 3.2 percent in the quarter ending September, as compared o 3.8 percent in previous quarter and 4.7 percent in 2013-14. For the entire financial...

-The Hindu Business Line   Claims that the economic gap in India is being bridged are not borne out by NSS data Recent accounts of poverty reduction - especially during 2004-11- triggered by the release of the 68th round of the NSS data, have been euphoric. Growth acceleration not just resulted in more rapid poverty reduction over this period than during 1993-2004 but it was also more inclusive as the most disadvantaged groups,...

-The Indian Express   Debate on the Gujarat model is more about stated positions, less about reality. Having done economic modelling all my life, as a student at the University of Pennsylvania, which boasted of the Wharton model and Lawrence Klein, and later, in the days when planning still mattered, while heading the modelling division of the Planning Commission, I find it bewildering that Gujarat's substantial real achievements and equally real problems are...