-The Business Standard Ending open defecation by 2019 will require changing minds, not just allocating money to build latrines for people that will either go unused or not be built at all During Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech, we learned that his Swachch Bharat Mission to eliminate open defecation in India by Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary, would begin in less than two months on October 2. What was...

-LSE Asia Research Centre Background: Farmers' suicides have become an important socio-economic concern in India that has profound implication on the quality of life of farmers and their families. There are not many epidemiological studies on this. We propose to estimate suicide rates for farmers and non-farmers across the states of India and over time. We will also contextualise our results to the discourse on agricultural technology and development in general...

Six journalists from Hindi and English media from Odisha, Jharkhand, Assam and Punjab have been selected for the prestigious Inclusive Media-UNDP Fellowships 2014. The fellows will take time off from routine journalism to spend time with rural/ marginalized communities to highlight their anxieties and concerns that require wider coverage and public attention. The fellowships cover costs of news gathering, logistics and incidental expenses up to Rs 150,000. The fellowship Jury...

-PulitzerCentre.org   "We can say that Punjab is dying now. There is no doubt. Punjab is the food basket [of India]. Now we can say it is the disease basket." Dr. Pritpal Singh sits in his simple office in the Baba Farid Center for Special Children, located in the small town of Faridkot, in India's Punjab region. Since 2003, Dr. Singh has been here, working with fellow Health professionals at the center, offering therapeutic...

-The Indian Express Rajasthan government's decision to ‘target' free medicines and diagnostics is contrary to the recommended role of government in Healthcare. In 2002-03, Abhijit Banerjee, Angus Deaton and Esther Duflo studied Health facilities in rural Udaipur, Rajasthan. They found that facilities were poor and absenteeism was rampant. In 2013, we decided to revisit the same public Health facilities. The motivation was to study two bold initiatives of the then Ashok Gehlot...