-The Indian Express India’s GDP 2020-21: This year, India’s per capita GDP, per capita private consumption and the level of investments in the economy — all will fall to levels last seen in 2016-17 or earlier, reveals latest official GDP data. On Thursday, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation released the First Advance Estimates (FAE) for the current financial year. According to MoSPI, India’s gross domestic product (GDP) — the total...

-Down to Earth One in every five Indians below 45 have at least one morbid condition Two in every three senior citizens in India suffer from some chronic disease, according to the first Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI) released by the Union Ministry of Family and Health Welfare on January 6 2020. Around 23 per cent of the elderly population (age 60 years and above) have multi-morbidities; elderly women are more likely...

Commenting on the recently released fifth round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data for 17 states and five Union Territories (UTs) in an article published in The Indian Express (dated 6th January, 2021), Arvind Subramanian and his co-authors have stated that India has made progress on certain outcomes, including infant mortality rate (IMR), under-five mortality rate (U5MR) and neonatal mortality rate (NNMR). Relying on various rounds of NFHS data,...

-The Indian Express Anganwadi workers, ASHAs, ANMs and anganwadi supervisors can work together with panchayat members to ensure that all children and mothers are covered with immunisation, antenatal care, maternity benefits and nutrition services On an MGNREGA worksite in Kolar, Karnataka, a male worker came up to me and said that men ought to be paid more than women. I asked him why. “Adhu yaavaagalu hange,” he replied: That was how it...

-The Indian Express Jean Dreze writes: Surjit Bhalla picks on data, but fails to debunk evidence of alarming trends in child nutrition. I must thank Surjit Bhalla (‘Ideology trumps evidence’, IE December 26) for confirming the main point of an earlier article of mine (‘Give children weight’, IE December 17) — namely, that child undernutrition tends to be taken lightly in the corridors of power. His intention, of course, was the opposite...