-Live Mint The experience of Kerala and Tripura shows how panchayati raj can help in the empowerment of women Chulubari (Tripura)/Kanjikuzhy (Kerala): Her relatives warned Hena Das, a resident of Chulubari in Tripura, against taking up political office because it wasn't "meant for women". Das disregarded the warnings. Two years on, she has no regrets. She also has no male colleagues; her fellow representatives on the board of an 12-member panchayat are all...

-The Times of India Some 20 months after hotly contesting data on UPA-1's "jobless growth", the government has admitted to lack of substantial increase in employment between 2004-05 and 2009-2010, with the self-employed workforce shrinking from 56.4% to 50.7% of the total workforce. In absolute numbers, the self-employed decreased from 258.4 million to 232.7 million in this period while regular salaried workers rose from 69.7 million to 75.1 million. The ranks of...

-Frontline Is there a shift in the attitude of Kerala society towards the value of daughters? Is son preference spreading in a State once known to be above extreme gender bias? A recent study on child sex ratio generates more questions than it answers. By R. KRISHNAKUMAR in Thiruvananthapuram ABORTION of female foetuses after parents learn of their gender using medical diagnostic techniques is believed to be one of the central reasons...

KEY TRENDS   • According to National Sample Survey report no. 583: Persons with Disabilities in India, the percentage of persons with disability who received aid/help from Government was 21.8 percent, 1.8 percent received aid/help from organisation other than Government and another 76.4 percent did not receive aid/ help *8   • As per National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4), the Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR) was 57.2 per 1,000 live births (for the non-STs it was 38.5)...

-Tehelka With 65 percent of the population below the age of 35, India boasts of an unparalleled generational dividend, but are we turning this potential into a disaster? Avalok Langer spots a ticking time bomb Nutrition & Health* 40% of children in India are malnourished 43% of children in the age group of 12-23 months receive full immunisation 48%+ of children are underweight 50%+ of all deaths under age 5 are related to malnutrition 45% of children...