-Brookings Institution India Center In  this  paper,  the author studies  the  data from  the  National  Crime  Record  Bureau  (NCRB)  of  India  and disaggregate  across  demographic  and  leading  causes  of  suicides. The author finds  that  mental  and  physical Health  are  the  leading  causes  of suicides  in  India  (20%)  while  the  often  cited  factor,  indebtedness, causes  significantly  lower  number  of suicides  (less  than  5%).  Among  the  different  demographic categories, housewives report the largest...

-Business Standard Ruling party MPs suggest changes to six of the nine amendments proposed by govt to the 2013 Act The government is set to relent on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015. On Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members of a parliamentary joint committee on the Bill suggested amendments that effectively bring back the social impact assessment and consent clauses,...

-The Hindu Employment in villages is largely in agriculture sector, while industrial employment is less than four per cent. The Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE) has advocated transformation and development of “smart villages” across the country to improve standard of living in the rural areas and boost the rural economy. Development of rural India holds the key to the nation’s sustainable economic growth, it said. SCOPE Director-General U.D. Choubey told The Hindu...

-Outlook The poor are increasingly displaying food preferences for better tasting, flavoured and packaged foods but with low nutritional content. Renewed media hype about counting the number of poor was sparked by the recent release of the Socio-Economic Caste Census. While many analysts found the prevalence of poverty alarmingly high, others debunked the SECC report for its muddled and incoherent view of deprivation. An important contribution of this report, however, is the...

-Frontline A survey conducted by the Women and Child Development Ministry and UNICEF in 28 States and Delhi presents a dismal picture of crucial maternal and child Health indicators. ONE OF the success stories that successive governments at the Centre have regularly narrated is the improvement in maternal and child Health indicators, including coverage of various facilities and services that directly or indirectly affect the Health and well-being of these cohort...