Increased representation for women can unleash a broader process that can be set in motion by the strength of sheer numbers. One measure of whether it is important to have women in important policy formulation roles is to examine how a largely male-dominated system of government has served women. It turns out that India performs very poorly in this regard. Despite a few heartening examples to the contrary, in general Indian...

A recent survey carried out by the TNUEF brings to light details of the discrimination Dalits in Madurai have faced for generations. OVER seven decades have rolled by since the freedom fighter A. Vaidhyanatha Iyer successfully led Dalits into the Meenakshi temple in Madurai, overcoming all the impediments posed by the casteist forces that were hell-bent on thwarting the historic event. But the stark reality is that “hidden apartheid” against...

KEY TRENDS  • The new Cohort-based Migration Metric (CMM) shows that inter-state labor mobility averaged 5-6.5 million people between 2001 and 2011, yielding an inter-state migrant population of about 60 million and an inter-district migration as high as 80 million @* • The first-ever estimates of internal work-related migration using railways data for the period 2011-2016 indicate an annual average flow of close to 9 million migrant people between the states. Both these estimates are significantly greater than the...

KEY TRENDS    • Extreme temperature shocks reduce farmer incomes by 4.3 percent and 4.1 percent during kharif and rabi respectively, whereas extreme rainfall shocks reduce incomes by 13.7 percent and 5.5 percent *&    • It is estimated that to cover 50 percent (5 million ha) of the total acreage under rice-wheat cropping system (RWCS) in India, about 60000 Turbo Happy Seeders and 30000 super SMS fitted combines will be required; at present, there are only about 3000...