-The Times of India PUNE: Child marriages have decreased since the first National Family Health Survey in 1992-93 when 54% of women between 20 and 24 years were married as children to 47%, at present. However, almost 40% of the girls in India are still married before the age of 14, according to a report by Dasra in collaboration with the UNICEF and UNFPA. In Maharashtra, 30-40% of girls were married before they...

-Live Mint Sanitation in India has come a long way from being no one's priority to a politically salient issue Our politicians are finally talking toilets. From former minister Jairam Ramesh's infamous statement that India needed more toilets than temples to becoming a campaign issue in the recent elections, sanitation in India has come a long way from being no one's priority to a politically salient issue. On becoming Prime Minister, Narendra...

-The Indian Express The scheme should be refocused towards creating durable assets in agriculture. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has a significant influence on agricultural operations and cultivation costs. If its present focus on community works can be reoriented to proactively promote improvements on the landholdings of small and marginal farmers through the creation of durable assets, it will be beneficial for agricultural productivity and incomes. Critics say that...

-The Indian Express Despite the bureaucratic mindset, there are also tremendous positive effects. As speculation mounts by the day that the Modi government is thinking of winding up the Planning Commission, this is an opportune moment to reflect on the relevance of the institution in the context of a rapidly changing Indian economy and society. One way of classifying institutions is in terms of the balance between their potential positive power (PPP) and...

-Live Mint On a recent trip to rural Bihar, I spent several hours talking with headmasters and cluster officers about how to improve children's learning in primary school. Their responses were primarily complaints directed at others. Complaints about the administrative tasks expected of them; about the Right To Education Act's no-detention policy; about parents and their limited interest in the school and about students who rarely attended school. At no point...