-The Hindu The top-down, rushed approach of the government in reaching out to farmers is likely to end in failure This year’s Interim Budget is being regarded as a big spread for farmers. The government announced its decision to transfer Rs.6,000 every year directly to 12 crore farmers holding cultivable land up to 2 hectares through the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme. While this is a progressive step, is it...
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Every drop matters -Kevin James & Shreya Shrivastava
-The Hindu The regulatory framework must be reformed to ensure access to safe and sufficient blood A ready supply of safe blood in sufficient quantities is a vital component of modern health care. In 2015-16, India was 1.1 million units short of its blood requirements. Here too, there were considerable regional disparities, with 81 districts in the country not having a blood bank at all. In 2016, a hospital in Chhattisgarh turned...
More »Everyone is afraid of data -Sonalde Desai
-The Hindu There needs to be robust Infrastructure for official statistics so that governments do not suppress inconvenient truths Over the past two weeks, headlines have focussed on declining employment between 2011-12 and 2016-17; loss of jobs under the National Democratic Alliance government, particularly post-demonetisation; and the government’s refusal to release a report using the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) documenting this decline, leading to resignations of two members of the National...
More »There's a hole in the data -Kiran Bhatty & Dipa Sinha
-The Indian Express The state has failed to create capacities for a timely, reliable, decentralised data regime. The credibility of India’s data systems is under serious threat with the recent controversy over the employment data of the National Sample Survey. While the Census of India and the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) have a good reputation, when it comes to data related to the social sector — health, education, nutrition —...
More »To implement EWS quota, central institutions seek Rs 5,600 crore -Ritika Chopra
-The Indian Express The 10 per cent EWS quota was approved by the Union Cabinet on January 7 and its implementation across all central institutions was notified by the HRD Ministry on January 17. All centrally-funded educational institutions — including IITs, IIMs, central universities, NITs and IIITs — will collectively add close to 1.2 lakh seats in the new academic session starting July, and another 95,000 next year to implement the...
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