-The Hindu With a high percentage of Muslims, Bihar’s Seemanchal region frames issues of representation and welfare In the ongoing general election, Seemanchal, a historically neglected and yet socially and politically significant region in Bihar, has once again registered a high voting percentage. Comprising four districts — Purnea, Katihar, Kishanganj and Araria — Seemanchal has a population of about 1 crore. It assumes sociopolitical significance owing to the large proportion of Muslims...

-The Economic Times For next Census, proposal being debated on adding separate heads for sects/branches of 6 major faiths. NEW DELHI: Are you a Kabir Panthi or a Marthomite or a follower of the Hinayana sect or an Ahmadia or a Kuka? Confused? These are sub-faiths under the rubrics of, respectively, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Sikhism. Census 2021 may ask Indians to identify not just whether they belong to one of the...

-The Indian Express It is best read as a political promise for social security. There is more than one way of redeeming it Guaranteed minimum income is a powerful idea that has already made some headway in various countries. Some European countries, for instance, guarantee a minimum income to their citizens. This requires extensive data collection as well as an effective cadre of welfare officers and social workers tasked with enquiring...

-IndiaWaterPortal.org Calculating water availability and crop budgeting can prevent over-extraction of groundwater and mounting farm debt. At 42 years, Bhagwat Ghagare seems young. But he is old enough to have seen his village prosper and decline many times. Farming had traditionally been small and distress migration rampant at Kumbharwadi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Between 1998 and 2002, a non-profit organisation, Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), initiated a work related to rainwater harvesting...

-The Indian Express The SECC has identified a total of 1.82 lakh households where at least one person is employed in manual scavenging in rural India, numbers which have been dismissed as gross underestimate by organisations working in the area. The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has issued orders to all states to use the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) so as to identify persons working as manual scavengers, persons with disabilities,...