-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...
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MDGs: A neglected agenda for inclusiveness
The India Country Report 2015 on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) comes at a time when the Union Budget 2015-16 allegedly cut expenditure on several social sector schemes and programmes. This year's MDG country report says that India will fail to achieve two important targets pertaining to reducing hunger and maternal mortality by 2015, among others. Released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the report says that India is...
More »What has ten years of RTI achieved? -Pamela Philipose
-The Tribune The biggest lesson of the last 10 years since the Right to Information Act came into force is that Indian democracy, if it has to be meaningful, has to have a strong, effective RTI regime. That regime has to be equally owned by those who govern and those who are governed. TEN years after the Right to Information Act promised the country a "practical regime of right to information for...
More »More Girls Missing in 'Developed' States
Child sex ratio (CSR) in India has declined from 927 in 2001 to 918 in 2011 (girls per 1,000 boys), according to a new report entitled Missing Girls: Mapping the Adverse Child Sex Ratio in India (Census 2011). Of the total 640 districts in the country, 429 districts have experienced decline in CSR (see the link below). Of these 429 districts, 26 districts exhibited drastic decline (of 50 points or more),...
More »North elects more women MLAs -Rukmini S
-The Hindu Bihar, Haryana and Rajasthan have the highest proportion When the results to the Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections came out two weeks ago, the northern State had produced twice the proportion of women legislators as its western counterpart. This isn't an exception; States with poor records on gender equality are consistently producing more female MLAs. Using Election Commission of India data, The Hindu found that as of today, Bihar, Haryana and Rajasthan...
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