Bihar Government's programme of distributing bicycles to school girls may be a modest intervention but is leading to big changes. A new research-based paper, brought out in August 2013, corroborates the success of the programme and testifies that it is leading to improved school enrollment of girls and arresting their dropout rates (See links below to read full paper and earlier studies on the subject). Based on econometric and statistical models,...
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Cash transfer reaches just 10% of test population-Sidhartha
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) was supposed to be a game-changer ahead of the 2014 general elections, with the government planning to plug leakages by transferring cash directly into the accounts of beneficiaries and hoping to cash in on their goodwill. But eight months down the line, it is discovering that the grand plan has run into bureaucratic walls and the beneficiaries are not ready to...
More »Sex ratio skew worsens with age, Census 2011 data finds -Subodh Varma
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Among children up to 15 years old, there are 1.8 crore fewer girls than boys - the sex ratio at 914 girls per 1,000 boys remaining the same as a decade ago. This is the chilling picture of the fate of girls emerging from age-wise data of India's population in 2011 released by census authorities on Friday. The data gives population for each succeeding age year,...
More »Correct costs of the Food Security Bill-Bharat Ramaswami, Milind Murugkar and Ashok Kotwal
-The Financial Express Food Security Bill will raise the subsidy burden by 18%. The debate should be about the rise in costs of households due to leakages in PDS and price hike of other nutritious food items, and how these costs can be minimised by DBT In a recent article, Surjit Bhalla ("Manmonia's FSB: 3% of GDP", July 6, Financial Express-http://goo.gl/qoIbd3) has asserted that the Food Security Bill will cost 3% of...
More »Cash Transfers, contractors out -Nitin Sethi
-The Hindu Acting on Sonia's recommendations, government to bring in key official amendments to Food Security Bill The government has decided to bring in key amendments to the National Food Security Bill, removing provisions for cash transfer and role of contractors and manufacturers in the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). The decision, which came on the recommendation of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, found support from the Opposition. The move comes even as the...
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