-The Telegraph Hands-off RBI cuts forecast The Reserve Bank of India’s policymakers shocked economists, industry and the Street by deciding to hit the pause button on interest rate cuts after five downward revisions this year. The six-member monetary policy committee (MPC) of the central bank also slashed its growth forecast for this financial year to 5 per cent from 6.1 per cent at the October meeting. The decision to retain the policy rate —...

-Livemint.com Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha have seen sharp increases in poverty rates over the past few years, an analysis of the national statistical office data suggests Ever since India moved to a high growth trajectory in the 1980s, poverty rates have consistently declined over time. Until now. A Mint analysis of the consumption expenditure numbers reported by the National Statistical Office (NSO) in a hushed-up report suggests that rural poverty rose nearly 4...

  A high maternal mortality ratio (MMRatio) indicates low status of women in the society apart from poor functioning of the health services delivery system. Recently released data by the Sample Registration System (SRS) bulletin indicates that for the country as a whole the MMRatio has steadily declined from 398.0 in 1997-98 to 122.0 in 2015-17, which is a fall by -69.3 percent. Table-1 shows that India's MMRatio was 398.0 in 1997-98,...

-The Hindu India has sustained its progress in reducing stunting and the number of underweight children in the last decade The Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) report, brought out recently by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, assumes salience, especially against two important factors. One, the latest Global Hunger Index (GHI), 2019 ranks India at the 102nd position out of 117 countries. Two, India’s past performance in reducing child undernutrition has...

-The Hindu Business Line India’s over-dependence on private players for vaccines is promoting irrational use and restricting access that leads to unacceptable fatalities The death of an eight-year-old girl, Anju, this August after denial of anti-rabies vaccine at Agra’s Sarojini Naidu Medical College (SNMC) is followed by the admission by Health Ministry that fatality rate for rabies in India is 100 per cent. Although the circumstance of Anju’s death is particularly Kafkaesque...