-The Hindu Technological changes in education and health are worsening inequities Virginia Eubanks’ widely acclaimed book, Automating Inequality, alerted us to the ways that automated decision-making tools exacerbated inequalities, especially by raising the barrier for people to receive services they are entitled to. The novel coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the use of digital technologies in India, even for essential services such as health and education, where access to them might be poor. Economic...

-The Indian Express The pandemic has forced us to rethink how we live our lives. We must also allow it to dismantle our exam-centric education system that only creates hyper-competitiveness and perpetuates inequalities. With the aggressive return of COVID-19, we are experiencing heightened anxiety. And amid this turmoil, we are also witnessing the breakdown of “normalcy” in our education system. As board exams get cancelled or postponed around the country, students, parents...

-The Hindu In the post-pandemic world, addressing inequality is key to sustaining growth and well-being COVID-19 in the last one year has once again reminded us of the growing inequalities in India. A recent Pew Research Report shows that India’s middle class may have shrunk by a third due to the novel coronavirus pandemic while the number of poor people earning less than ₹150 per day more than doubled. The Pew report...

-The Hindu The political emphasis on welfare interventions is insufficient to address the emerging developmental issues in the State A major concern in contemporary Indian development is the widening socio-economic disparity across groups and regions. Even when regions perform relatively better in one developmental dimension, it does not often translate into all round development. For instance, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala might have attained better levels of human development but that has not...

-Counterview.net Even as calling Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget “historic”, top international NGO Oxfam, pointing towards “some gaps” in it, “especially while addressing inequalities on the lines of caste, class, gender and occupation”, has regretted that the budget “does not address the urgent spending needs in the social sector, especially in health and education.” In a statement, Oxfam India quotes CEO stating that “the Union Budget 2021 has failed to address inequality...