-The United Nations   People everywhere are living longer, the United Nations health agency today reported, mostly because fewer children are dying, certain diseases are in check, and tobacco use is down, but conditions in low-income countries continue to plague life quality there. According to the UN World Health Organization's (WHO) World Health Statistics 2014, a girl born in 2012 can expect to live around 73 years and a boy to the...

-The Indian Express   Human capital inequality is what India needs to be most concerned about right now.   THOMAS PIKETTY's Capital in the Twenty-First Century has attracted a great deal of attention, especially (it seems) where I live, in Washington DC. Some people have said the city has caught a severe case of "Piketty fever". Everyone seems to be talking about the book - clearly many more people than have read its 700...

-Down to Earth   Poverty line figures hide people's aspirations There are lies, damn lies and statistics, American author Mark Twain once wrote echoing a similar statement by the British statesman Benjamin Disraeli. Statistics aim to reveal a lot, but they conceal vital information. This concealing tendency of statistics explains much of the flak received by the Planning Commission when it released figures on the poverty line. In 2012, the commission announced that...

A new report from the United Nations entitled Trends in maternal mortality estimates 1990 to 2013 shows that India accounted for 17 percent (i.e. 50000 maternal deaths) of global maternal deaths (i.e 289000 maternal deaths) in 2013. Previously the State of World’s Children 2009 report stated that India’s share in global maternal deaths was a staggering 22 percent in 2005. (Please see the links below).      The latest report on trends in maternal mortality...

-The Indian Express   Debate on the Gujarat model is more about stated positions, less about reality. Having done economic modelling all my life, as a student at the University of Pennsylvania, which boasted of the Wharton model and Lawrence Klein, and later, in the days when planning still mattered, while heading the modelling division of the Planning Commission, I find it bewildering that Gujarat's substantial real achievements and equally real problems are...