With the release of a UNDESA report on the World Population Day this year i.e., July 11, once again the debate on who's responsible for the population growth in India has resurfaced. Titled World Population Prospects 2022, the report states that the global population is expected to touch 8 billion on November 15, 2022, and India is projected to exceed China as the world’s most populous country in 2023.  As soon as...

-Scroll.in A welfare scheme is not the space for technological experiments. In a state with poor nutrition, the government should act against corruption and Exclusion. Ration dealers were siphoning off more than half of the grain entitlement of ration cardholders. That is what residents of several villages in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district noted at a recent public hearing on the functioning of the public distribution system in the area. The statements of participants...

-TheSwaddle.com A position paper drafted by a committee of experts under the National Education Policy recommended removing meat and eggs from the midday meal scheme in schools, which is one of the mainstays of children’s nutrition in the country. The committee made some dubious claims pertaining to lifestyle, genetics, and discrimination in justifying the policy — revealing the inherent casteist roots of food politics in India. The Swaddle’s Rohitha Naraharisetty spoke to...

-TheWire.in The re-conceptualisation of sex work as a form of sexual labour will increase sex workers’ accessibility to resources, mobilise them for representation and participation, and challenge social Exclusion. One of the most unsettling debates in contemporary India has been on sex markets and sex work. Stemming from obscurantist sexual moorings of orthodoxy, the public impulse has been fragmentary. The premise underlying the internal contradiction is the delusive alienation of labour and sex. There...

-TheWire.in While the system was rightly designed to eliminate ghost beneficiaries, the impact of Exclusion errors needs to be professionally and independently evaluated in detail. The direct benefit transfer (DBT) system has come to dominate the discourse on public service delivery in India. The existing rhetoric around its efficacy being one of anti-corruption, cost efficiency, and elimination of middlemen. Payments under DBT are made to low-income households using an elaborate, digitised system...