-Economic and Political Weekly Despite the efforts of successive governments, sanitation coverage remains low in India. While several studies have explored the impact of user financing on the improvement of sanitation facilities, this article looks at the conditions of housing, infrastructure and the surroundings of slums, under which different sanitation arrangements are made. The sanitation arrangements considered are of various types of ownership and cost-sharing arrangements. The findings provide useful insights...

-Economic and Political Weekly The caste (jati)-based practice of untouchability in India, shifting the focus from the victims of this practice, the ex-untouchables (Dalits), to the perpetrators, the non-Dalits is examined by identifying and disaggregating communities that continue to practise untouchability. The second wave of the India Human Development Survey data has been used to generate a socio-economic profile of those who practise untouchability in India, and check the hypothesis that...

-Economic and Political Weekly In Tamil Nadu, the extreme variation in rainfall had reduced the availability of water to agriculture and caused the groundwater table to fall by 37%. The production of rice, an important crop, had became particularly precarious. A well-designed upscaling strategy boosted and sustained the production of rice; it also helped the build-up of organic matter and improved soil fertility. This experience shows that the System of Rice...

-Economic and Political Weekly The child undernutrition estimates from the Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey, 2016–18 reveal that many Indian states have made substantial decline, reversing their poor past record in wasting, ranging from 7 to 14 percentage points within just 30 months. Is it really possible to make such a large decline in such a short span of time? Or, does this point to an anomaly in data or estimation? Please click...

-Economic and Political Weekly Policies ensuring food security and nutrition support require a renewed focus and sense of urgency. It is a national shame that, even several decades after independence, the country has not been able to free itself from the problem of hunger and malnutrition that endangers the life and health of the population, especially that of children, women, and vulnerable groups. The global hunger index (GHI) published this year has...