Although the focus of erstwhile UPA and the present NDA government has been to achieve higher economic growth by reaping the 'demographic dividend', a recent report from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) informs us that a substantial chunk of the population underwent ageing during the last 60 years. The report entitled Elderly in India: Profile and Programmes 2016 from CSO (that comes under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation) shows...

-Frontline.in An initiative focussed on Kerala’s development experience exposes a worrying trend of rising inequality and proposes a strategy for sustainable and equitable growth. THE fourth international Congress on Kerala Studies, organised by the A.K.G. Centre for Study and Research in Thiruvananthapuram on January 9-10, has generated much interest for its focus on a worrying new trend in Kerala’s development experience: rising inequality and marginalisation of large sections of people despite...

-Economic and Political Weekly Health and nutrition indicators have improved, but remain unacceptably low. After a hiatus of a decade, we now have up-to-date information on the health and nutrition status of the population. Preliminary results for 13 states and two union territories of the much awaited National Family Health Survey–4 (NFHS–4) which was conducted in 2015–16—the first after NFHS–3 of 2005–06—have just been released. In a welcome development, NFHS–4, for the...

-The Times of India BENGALURU: The overall literacy rate in the country may have gone up to 74.4%, but the drop in the illiteracy rate has not matched the increase in population. Between 2001 and 2011, the population above the age of 7 grew by 18.65 crore but the decrease in the number of illiterates is just 3.11 crore. A 2015 Unesco report said that in terms of absolute numbers, India - with...

-The Hindu What matters more for development: location or community? New official data show that while some communities do better than others in sex ratio and literacy, State-level differences can be as important. Newly released data from the Census shows that on average nationwide, Christians, followed by Muslims, continue to have the most gender-equal child sex ratios of 958 girls for every 1,000 boys and 943 respectively. Buddhists follow, with Hindus, Jains...