-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...

-The Indian Express The disparity in living conditions in the capital was starkly revealed by the data released in the Delhi Statistical Handbook 2013. According to the handbook, over 30 per cent of Delhi's population lives in one-room dwellings, while three per cent resides in more five-room accommodations. As per the report, 32.2 per cent of the population - both rural and urban - stays in single-room dwellings followed by 29.6 per...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India's Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) has shown a minor decline last year compared to 2011. However, West Bengal and Assam - the worst performer - have shown no improvement at all, bucking the national trend of a decline in infant deaths by 4.5% - from 44 deaths for every 1,000 live births in 2011 to 42 fatalities the next year. A combination of causes like low...

-PTI Expressing surprise on the absence of latest official data on malnutrition, a Parliamentary panel has asked the government to come up with a time-bound action plan to reduce under-nutrition and ensure real time flow of information for proper monitoring. "We are surprised to note that in this modern era of information technology, there is no recent official data on malnutrition. What is available is seven years old and outdated...National Family Health...

-Down to Earth Our policy makers should move away from the income criterion for estimating poverty and take cognisance of other indicators Amid mounting criticism and heated debates about the poverty line, a challenge has resurfaced to examine whether there could be a single non-monetary criterion of estimating poverty. A poverty line is a monetary cut-off point below which a person is deemed to be poor. Thus, any attempt to measure poverty...