India's total fertility rate (TFR) - the average number of children expected to be born per woman during her reproductive years - has fallen by19% over the past decade. Among bigger states, the percentage decline in TFR during this period the last decade varied from as high as 28% in Punjab to 5.6%in Kerala. Maharashtra saw the second highest dip in TFR between 2000-2010 at 26.9%, followed by Haryana and Andhra...
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The poverty wars and impossibly low poverty line of India by V Raghunathan
Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar (TOI March 25 and ET March 28) has strongly defended the Planning Commission's stance that there is nothing amiss with the poverty line drawn at Rs 22.40 in rural areas and Rs 28.65 in urban areas (down from initial estimates of Rs 32 and Rs 26, respectively). Let us discount the copious tears being shed by various politicians and their parties on this new line of poverty...
More »School slapped with show-cause notice for RTE violation
-The Times of India The education department on Thursday slapped a show-cause notice to Sofia Senior Secondary Girls' School for violating norms under the Right to Education (RTE) Act. The show-cause notice was served after the department investigated complaints of a parent who said many girls studying below Class VIII were not promoted to the next class. The department found the complaints to be true but the school said saying parents of...
More »Toilet torture replaces cane in some schools-Ananya Sengupta
Block the loo and train the child. If a recent report of the National Commission of Child Rights is to be believed, barring students bathroom breaks seems to be teachers’ favourite form of punishment. According to the report, “Eliminating Corporal Punishment in Schools”, released earlier this month, almost 18 per cent students are not allowed to go to the restroom as punishment for bad behaviour in class. This is at the top of...
More »Urban Indians shun doctors, risk death from cancer-Malathy Iyer
By selectively borrowing habits from the West, the urban Indian has worsened his chances with cancer. Doctors say that while the city-bred Indian has willingly adopted a western diet, lapping up high-fat foods and shunning high-fibre content, he or she hasn't picked up the healthy western attitude of detecting and treating cancer early. The end-result, as the India's Million Death Study (MDS) reported on Thursday shows, is that urban Indians are...
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