-The Hindu The National Food Security Act is finally making headway in the poorest States. Amplified by reforms in the Public Distribution System, a modicum of nutritional support and economic security to all vulnerable households is now a real possibility. Dhobargram is a small Santhal village in Bankura district of West Bengal, with 100 households or so. Most of them are poor, or even very poor, by any plausible standard. There are...
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Widening the net beyond the income norm -Abhishek Jain & Shalu Agrawal
-The Hindu Less than 3 per cent of Indians pay income tax and a significant proportion under-reports taxable income. On December 28, 2015, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas announced the exclusion of high-income households from the LPG subsidy cover. As per the official press release, subsidy would not be available for domestic LPG consumers, if the consumer or his/her spouse had taxable income of more than Rs. 10 lakh for...
More »Missing the tree for the woods: Deaths due to cold
They say that fact is stranger than fiction, and the fact is that more people in India die annually due to exposure to cold weather rather than because of earthquake, cyclone or torrential rain. Data accessed from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that every year more people die because of 'exposure to cold' than due to landslide, flood or epidemic. The report entitled Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India...
More »Only 33% of Muslims work, lowest among all religions -Subodh Varma
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Muslims have the lowest share of working people - about 33% - among all religious communities in India. This is lower than the nationwide average work participation rate of 40%. The figure for Jains and Sikhs stands at 36% each. Buddhists, comprising mostly Dalits who embraced Buddhism in the 20th century, have a high working population share at 43%. For Hindus, the figure is 41%. Drawn...
More »Census data: Location too matters for growth -Rukmini S
-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...
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