-Down to Earth More than half of population without access to banking lives in 7 developing countries: World Bank India is among seven countries home to half the world’s 1.4 billion adults without access to formal banking, a recent World Bank report has flagged. The report also noted that in Sub-Saharan Africa, young adults (ages 15–24) make up almost 40 per cent of those without access to banking. But in some European and...

-Livemint.com With sex tied to marriage, the first sexual experience for Indians is occurring later than ever The median Indian man has his first experience of sex at nearly age 25, the last among men from 67 countries for which comparable data is available, the National Family Health Survey released last month shows. The NFHS, and similar surveys conducted around the developing world through the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) system, help shine...

-Financial Express The extent of asymmetry between the support extended by the developing and the developed countries was brought to the fore in an earlier paper jointed submitted by India, China and some others. India, along with 80-odd developing countries, has sought a revision of the over three-decade-old external reference prices of farm commodities that are used by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to calculate current domestic farm subsidies extended by developing...

-TheWire.in A new report finds that richer countries' tendency to reroute funds meant for development – including those meant for poverty eradication – harms poorer countries. But this is unsurprising, say experts. Kochi: Despite their promises, developed countries have not committed new and additional funds to developing countries to help them deal with climate change, found a new report released on June 23. Instead, developed countries are diverting funds meant for development –...

-Livemint.com Mahalanobis gave our data system global recognition and we must ask why we lost that credibility In the summer of 1946, at the ‘nuclear’ session of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC), a representative of a British colony made an impassioned plea for laying down globally accepted standards for conducting large-scale sample surveys. Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis argued that household surveys would become invaluable data sources for many developing countries that were...