India’s population of 1.2 billion, according to the 2011 decennial census, is growing at the century’s slowest rate of 17.6 per cent — four percentage points lower than in the previous decade. India is approaching, but has not yet reached, the replacement level. This means India’s population will stabilise somewhere between 1.5 billion and 1.6 billion by 2030, making it the world’s most populous country. It is hard to discern...

Sober Reflection     * Invoking a clause in the Panchayati Raj Act, panchayats in Punjab are going dry     * The resolutions have to be adopted by two-thirds majority at panchayat meetings     * The excise department has had to shut down 32 liquor vends and relocate 15 of them     * Liquor consumption is high in Punjab: per capita consumption is 12 bottles a year *** It's the state that gave the nation the Patiala...

The Union health ministry registered only 107 cases of female feticide under Section 315 and 316 of IPC in 2010. This is an abysmally low figure in a country which scientists believe has seen over 10 million female lives lost to abortion and sex selection in the past two decades. A few years ago, an Indo-Canadian scientist had reported in the Lancet that pre-natal selection and selective abortion was causing a...

Authorities in Chandigarh don't seem to be doing enough for raising literacy rate as compared to other states and union territories. In 2011, the city came down to eighth position on the all-India literacy list. In the 2001 census, it had the sixth highest literacy rate in the country. This happened in spite of increase in overall literacy here. Though Chandigarh has achieved the Planning Commission target of 85% literacy, it couldn't...

With the provisional figures for the 2011 Census sounding an alarm over the falling child sex ratio, it's a good time to look at who really is responsible for this. Who's committing female feticide and infanticide? Available figures show that it's not the poorest and least literate people and communities who are responsible; to the contrary, the reverse is true. The 2011 numbers show that the states with the worst child...