-TheWire.in The finance ministry can continue to quibble, but the stark fact is that decades of underspending in education and health may result in India wasting its demographic dividend. On October 11, the World Bank launched the latest of its country rankings: the Human Capital Index (HCI). The objective of the index is to show how low education and health outcomes – or human capital – impact productivity, growth and prosperity. The...
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With Facebook banned, Kashmir's youth reach out via Kashbook -Suvojit Bagchi
-The Hindu Tech-savvy teens develop alternative social networking platforms for the Valley Srinagar: A bright and windy day, when tourists were out and about in Srinagar, turned dark in minutes. Shops and schools shut, children rushed home, police swarmed the streets and internet links snapped, as news of top Hizbul Mujahideen commander Sabzar Bhat’s death broke. But amidst the chaos, two teens were busy making plans to attract more traffic to their...
More »Just another trivial Budget -Ashok V Desai
-The Hindu The Finance Minister’s prescriptions are a classic case of being unable to see the wood for the trees, be it on the tax proposals, the rural outreach or the bank bailout. It was a marathon achievement: 12,187 words in 111 minutes. True, there were no interruptions; the Finance Minister virtually sent the House to sleep. I have listened to many Budget speeches; and I cannot say that Dr. Manmohan Singh...
More »Not a good prognosis -Amit Sengupta
-The Hindu The health sector typifies the hands-off policy of the government in areas that impact welfare and livelihoods. An air of anticipation and optimism greeted the formation and installation of the new government in 2014. A widely held view was that it would be much more decisive than the previous dispensation in providing some direction to public policy. Twenty months have passed and the initial sense of optimism has been replaced...
More »Thanks to Haryana law and SC order, these women and their village will fall off the map -Ritika Chopra
-The Indian Express The residents of Nimkheda, a small settlement of 1,674 people in Haryana’s Mewat district, are visibly unsettled and worried Nimkheda (Mewat, Haryana): Dressed in a white salwar-kameez, her dupatta wrapped as a headscarf, an upset Ashubi Khan (55) thumped her right palm with her fist as she spoke in Mewati. “My illiteracy is not my fault, but a reflection of the state’s failure to fulfil its responsibilities. Did our...
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