-The Indian Express Contrary to conventional wisdom, the UPA lost despite an inclusive, growing economy. Economists have been busy telling us that the economy decided the election result. We heard it during the campaign and they have been at it again in their post-mortems. They are wrong. Consider some evidence. Most Indians live in rural areas. Elections are won and lost there. So for any government, it makes good electoral sense to look...
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Average Indian lives longer now: WHO
The latest WHO report entitled World Health Statistics 2014 delineates the performance made on the health front by India vis-à-vis other nations between 1990 and 2012. It also presents the challenges that the new government at the Centre should try to resolve. In India, life expectancy at birth (both sexes, in years) has increased from 58 in 1990 to 66 in 2012. While life expectancy at birth for men rose from 57...
More »How I&B ministry milked DD, AIR for serials, bulletins on UPA schemes -Archna Shukla
-The Indian Express According to the I&B ministry, DD and AIR were paid Rs 45.67 crore for advertisements and advertorials run under the campaign. As a last push to help the UPA wade through the elections, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting employed the entire media machinery at its disposal, including Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR), to tom-tom the government's welfare and development initiatives. Besides paying for direct advertising spots and...
More »It’s about the poor -PP Sangal
-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...
More »Neighbours outperform India on maternal health
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...
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