Online teaching was perhaps the most preferred mode (of the policymakers) for imparting education to school children in the last two years when schools faced closures thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was promoted by both the Central and State Governments when mobility almost came to a standstill (or got restricted in comparison to normal times) during the last two years. However, various studies (a list of those studies is...

-The Telegraph A Truth Commission for the Northeast This essay is a letter to my fellow Indians. It’s a prayer, a plea, a proposal for a project, a moral experiment. It was triggered by the emptiness of Independence Day, when a majoritarian, mediocre India confronted the vacuity of its political self. These feelings increased upon reading reports on December 4 of the massacre of several civilians in Nagaland. They were waiting at...

-The Hindu As inflation is driven by supply-side factors, tax policy can be used to cushion its impact With the Union Budget 10 days away, many economic observers are now focused on what support the Centre can offer the economy, which is still struggling to recover from the pandemic. Some analysts believe that the government must keep its spending in check to prevent price rise from getting out of control. Retail inflation...

In the previous news alert, we looked at the under-nutrition problem in the Bundelkhand region in terms of 3 indicators -- proportion of children under 5 years who are stunted (height-for-age); proportion of children under 5 years who are wasted (weight-for-height); and proportion of children under 5 years who are underweight (weight-for-age). However, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data also indicates that severe under-nutrition like severe wasting and anaemia among...

-The Hindu Bench asks States to provide data on malnutrition, starvation deaths and other related issues within two weeks The Supreme Court’s questions on hunger deaths drew a near blank from the Union government on Tuesday. The government’s response skirted from urging the court to ask the States for data, making sweeping comments about malnutrition in “developing countries” to reading statistics out of a 2015 health survey report and a newspaper article. “Why are...