Due to the annual decline in under-5 mortality rate by almost 7% during 2008-13, the Government is hopeful of India attaining the target 5 of Millennium Development Goal-4 i.e. reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the U5MR. This has been revealed in a press release on checking child mortality rate by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, dated 28 April, 2015.   However, experts think that this will be...

-Livemint.com Increase in calorie consumption in rural and urban areas has surprised sceptics who doubted the sharpest fall in poverty seen in the last decade since the 1980s A long-standing puzzle in the Indian context has been the steady decline in calorie intake over the years despite economic progress. Many have argued that the decline in calorie consumption as seen from the surveys of National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) is evidence...

-The World Bank A World Bank study shows creating productive assets can help make MGNREGS cost effective New Delhi– The Indian economy has turned the corner, says the latest India Development Update of the World Bank. Aided by a supportive external environment, in particular the sharp decline in oil and commodity prices, the Indian economy has taken strong strides towards higher growth and enhanced stability. Growth has accelerated, inflation has declined, the...

-Business Standard Even as country stares at a possible drought, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has hit a new low At a time when rural India is in distress, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), which could have provided some relief, is itself facing its worst period ever. The number of people working under the scheme and the amount of work provided is dwindling, and the trend...

-Maintream Weekly In order to reduce and remove the many-sided disadvantages and problems faced by Dalits and adivasis, sub-plans for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have been introduced to ensure adequate and justice-based availability of funds for these communities. Summarising the basic idea and rationale for this, the Planning Commission says: “the persistence of socio-economic backwardness of the SCs and STs in spite of the development efforts had warranted a special...