Tribal Health Indicators A tribal child is 25% more likely to be underweight and 40% more likely to die before five years of age compared with an average Indian child. The proportion of low birth-weight children at around 23% as well as the proportion of neo-natal deaths at roughly 40% is similar for tribals and others. However, more tribal children die in the 1-4 age group compared with others, according to the World...

-Live Mint At a time when India plans a multi-pronged attack on malnutrition in 200 high-burden districts, it will pay to examine the cracks in state institutions that have led to past failures and can still derail well-intentioned plans. Melghat, a tribal corner in the northeastern fringes of India’s richest state—Maharashtra—is an apt example of almost everything that has gone wrong in India’s response to malnutrition and child deaths. Every 14th child dies...

-PTI While petrol prices are market-linked, govt fixes LPG, kerosene and diesel rates, which results in huge expenditure on subsidies Making a case for raising prices of diesel, kerosene and LPG, the Reserve Bank today said hike in rates of petroleum products is necessary to arrest fiscal slippages. "Overall from the perspective of vulnerabilities emerging from the fiscal and current account deficits, it is imperative for macroeconomic stability that administered prices of petroleum...

In what the CBI says could be the “tip of an iceberg”, the agency has found at least 1,100 cases of allegedly fraudulent refund checks issued by the Income Tax department that has resulted in the illegal withdrawal of more than Rs 6 crore over the last three months. The CBI has arrested two persons, including an accountant: Pankaj Kumar Gupta and Amit Kumar Sharma. Both, allegedly in league with IT...

No matter where you draw the line, the fall in poverty is greater in high GDP growth years   Some plain facts and some ugly truths. The plain fact is that poverty in India has declined at a rapid pace during the UPA years post 2004. An ugly truth. When the Planning Commission released the estimates of poverty in India, on the basis of the household survey conducted by the NSS in...