-NationalGeographic.com She grew up in an affluent New York town but soon after college, Ajaita Shah went to her parents’ native India to work with the poor JAIPUR: “I saw a 5-year-old die in five seconds,” says Ajaita Shah, recalling the Indian girl enveloped by a kerosene fire at home. “There was nothing we could do.” Not then. But since that 2008 disaster, Shah has helped cut the use of kerosene lamps in...
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India’s suicide problem -Shamika Ravi
-The Indian Express Response to the crisis of farmer suicides is narrowly focused. Poor health accounts for most suicides, necessitating improved access to healthcare rather than special packages For over a decade, farmer suicides in India has been a serious public policy concern. More recently, this has led to a shrill media outcry and much politicking. The government response to the crisis of farmer suicide has mostly been simplistic and sometimes aggravating....
More »Petty cultivators & agricultural labourers worst victims of farm suicide
There is a class angle to farmers' suicide in India. Close to three-quarter of farmers who committed suicide in 2014 were small and marginal farmers. ‘Bankruptcy or indebtedness’ accounted for one-fifth of total farmers’ suicide during 2014. The report entitled Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India 2014 by the National Crime Records Bureau of Ministry of Home Affairs clarifies the doubt that indebtedness and bankruptcy were major causes of farmers' suicide,...
More »Limits of the SECC Data
-Economic and Political Weekly This is not "big data" to be used to cut down welfare expenditure. It was the Ministry of Rural Development which, for close to five years beginning in 2010, designed, planned and oversaw the execution of the 2011 Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC), whose first batch of results were released earlier this month. Yet, it was somewhat unusual to see Union Minister for Finance, Arun Jaitley, rather...
More »Vyapam scam: UN body calls for probe into death of journalist Akshay Singh
-PTI UNITED NATIONS: The head of a UN agency mandated to defend freedom of expression has called on Indian authorities to investigate the mysterious death of TV reporter Akshay Singh while covering the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, saying crimes against journalists must not go unpunished. Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) Irina Bokova expressed condolences to Singh's family, friends and colleagues and urged the authorities to...
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