-The Indian Express At the inaugural Indian Express Thinc Migration series presented by Omidyar Network India, moderated by Udit Misra, deputy associate editor, panelists discussed the crisis in India’s internal migration. On migration patterns S Irudaya Rajan: In the 2011 census, India had 450 million migrants. We have policies in the country to increase migration, and policymakers and economists, who believe urbanisation will lead to economic growth. This is reflected in the Smart...

School meals ensure nutrition for millions of vulnerable children across the world. Almost 370 million children worldwide are covered by school feeding programmes. While 100 million school children benefitted from the noon meal scheme in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Brazil (48 million), China (44 million), South Africa (9 million) and Nigeria (9 million) too run similar programmes for school children. However, an estimated 39 billion in-school...

-IdeasforIndia.in Examining the 2021-22 Union Budget with a political economy lens, Yamini Aiyar contends that the policy choices reflects Government of India’s propensity to centralise rather than to devolve, and a shift away from welfarism. Following the presentation of the Union Budget 2021-22 by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on 1 February, economists have carefully scrutinised the fiscal math and debated the economic rationale behind the policy choices. Beyond the fiscal math, the...

-Financial Express The Survey ends up using an array of inapposite health indicators in studying the scheme’s impact Universal health coverage (UHC) has received an unprecedented systemic push over the past decade, reinforced greatly by the Sustainable Development Goals. In India, the public health insurance (PHI) route has been strongly advanced as the prime agency for attaining UHC—founded on the experience of the multitude of state and national PHI schemes stretching since...

-The Indian Express Investment in human capital, science and research remains the Achilles heel of Indian policy. The budget allocation for agriculture research and education has constantly declined from 0.31 per cent of the gross value added of agriculture and allied activities in 2011-12 to 0.24 per cent now Seven years of low crude prices, five years of above normal monsoon topped by good agriculture production, and everything looked positive for a...