-SocialProgressImperative.org The 2014 Social Progress Index reveals striking differences across countries in their social performance, highlights the very different strengths and weaknesses of individual countries, and provides concrete guidance for national policy agendas. The Index is the sum of three dimensions: Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Wellbeing, and Opportunity. Each dimension is made up of four equally weighted individual components scored on an objective scale from 0-100. This scale is determined by...

-The Indian Express Data shows that the state is high on growth, low on development. What does this say about the government's priorities? No matter what the political leanings, many people have come to accept the premise that Gujarat has performed a lot better than the rest of India in terms of development over the last decade. People are even talking about the Gujarat model of development as something for the whole...

-PTI He noted that India's performance in poverty reduction and public welfare schemes is now lower even than that of poor countries Vested interests of individuals and "lobbying" among political parties is acting as impediment in India's quest for poverty reduction, noted economist Jean Dreze has said. The economist said it was "ironical" that during the peak period of the country's development, the corresponding indexes for poverty reduction, nutrition and health status have...

The share of total expenditure on medical and healthcare is comparatively higher for an average rural citizen than his/her urban counterpart, reveals the latest available National Sample Survey Report (68th Round) entitled Level and Pattern of Consumer Expenditure 2011-12.   Although an average urban Indian spends nearly 84 percent higher than his/her rural counterpart in a month, the share of total outlay on medical expense* is higher in case of the...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Essential nutrition interventions are found to be strongly associated with lower under-nutrition levels in India. This is shown by constructing and comparing a child undernutrition index and child nutrition score, both of which use data from India's latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3). The CUI indicates that 16 of the 28 states have high or very high levels of child under-nutrition. The CNS indicates that 24 states...