-The Hindu Although the SECC’s objectives are not likely to be met, it is a big step towards providing accurate information on the well-being of the people. The release of data for rural households from the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) is only the latest step in India’s tortured history of trying to count its poor. The idea behind the SECC was technocratic. Commissioned by the United Progressive Alliance in 2011,...

-The Indian Express Information was collected on a range of parameters at the individual and household levels like occupation, education, disability, religion, SC/ST status and employment. Nearly one in every three rural households still have an uncertain source of income and continue to live in one-room kutcha houses, according to the findings of the first national Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC). Officials told The Indian Express that these households — 31.26 per...

-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...

-Business Standard Not to estimate poverty lines or absolute numbers; will take these from ongoing socio-eco caste census done by states, focus on impact of programmes Taking note of some hard lessons learnt by its predecessor, the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog would not estimate either poverty lines or the number of the poor in the country. The erstwhile Planning Commission, replaced by the Aayog, had got into a big controversy...

The India Country Report 2015 on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) comes at a time when the Union Budget 2015-16 allegedly cut expenditure on several social sector schemes and programmes. This year's MDG country report says that India will fail to achieve two important targets pertaining to reducing hunger and maternal mortality by 2015, among others. Released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the report says that India is...