-PTI NEW DELHI/GENEVA: Indicating a poor state of affairs on gender parity front, India was today ranked at a low 101st position on a global Gender Gap Index despite an improvement by four places since last year. The index, compiled by Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF), has ranked 136 countries on how well resources and opportunities are divided between men and women in four broad areas of economy, education, politics, education and...

-The Hindu Launched in 2006 by the JD(U)-BJP government at the time, the scheme provided money to all girls who enrolled in Class IX through their schools to buy themselves a cycle. The first independent, scientific evaluation of the impact of Bihar's cycles-for-girls programme has shown that the scheme significantly improved female school enrolment and substantially reduced the gender gap in secondary school enrolment. The study, by Karthik Muralidharan, an economist at...

-The Times of India LONDON: London School of Economics' Ideas for Growth conference on Monday hailed the Bihar government's 'bicycles-to-girls' policy as one that can be imitated globally. Bihar witnessed a 30% increase in school attendance by girls in just one year, thanks to the bicycles policy. With a high school dropout rate among girls, the state government had rolled out the policy under which every 14-year-old schoolgirl was given money to...

-The Business Standard Panel member questioned the choice of sub-components There is some consolation for Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi: Not everyone in a panel headed by Reserve Bank of India Governor and former chief economic advisor Raghuram Rajan had favoured the inclusion of Gujarat in the list of less developed states. Economist and social scientist Shaibal Gupta, a member of the panel, had dissented and...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: An expert panel has ranked Gujarat 12th among states in development, its findings flying in the face of Narendra Modi's claims but winning endorsement from economists The Telegraph spoke to. The committee, headed by Raghuram Rajan who has since been appointed Reserve Bank governor, assessed states on the basis of 10 criteria, which included many human development indicators. Bengal came 16th. Economist and Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen, who...