-Firstpost.com For marginalised communities, modern education is a precious asset and a way for acquiring socio-economic mobility in an unequal society In the past few weeks, several students belonging to marginalised communities such as Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) have received offers to study in prestigious universities abroad including Royal Holloway London, Oxford University, SOAS, London, among others. However, privatisation in education has meant that the amount of wealth required for...

-Scroll.in A drop in household savings has caused concern about economic recovery in the country. On Wednesday, the Reserve Bank of India released data on household savings for the third quarter of 2020-’21. This covered the October-December 2020 period, which means the data captured the aftermath of first Covid-19 wave in India and the economic disruptions that containment measures such as lockdowns caused. The numbers are disappointing with a sharp dip in the...

-Scroll.in The focus is on providing food grains to the very poor as against supporting that with more funding for existing nutrition-focussed welfare programmes. Data collated from a recent paper -studying the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 by Jean Dreze and Anmol Somanchi reflect the grim condition of India’s looming malnutrition crisis. In a co-authored essay around April 2020, we had argued how the “hidden costs of this pandemic” (and the...

-Economic and Political Weekly The status of the tribal domestic workers in Jharkhand is explored. It is evident that large numbers of tribal women are engaged as domestic workers inside and outside of the state, and the sector provides a large chunk of employment apart from the cultivation and agricultural sector. The data show differential engagement in the sector by age, urban–rural location, gender, and tribe. Please click here to access the...

-PTI/ The Hindu Using test positivity as guiding factor may create challenges: Oxford Economics States’ reopening strategy in the wake of a decline in COVID-19 cases is not “prudent” and might even result in a rise in infections as vaccine coverage remains low in many States, global forecasting firm Oxford Economics said on Wednesday. In a report, it also said, “we remain cautious and maintain our 2021 growth forecast at 9.1%”, pointing out...