KEY TRENDS • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14 • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...
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Indian cabinet approves caste-based census for 2011
India's first caste-based census since 1931 will take place next year, the cabinet has announced. It said the controversial count would last from June-September 2011, after a full census had been held. Answering questions on caste will be optional. The move is intended to help target affirmative action benefits. Discrimination relating to caste in Hinduism - the complex social hierarchy based on people's occupations - is banned in India but still goes on. Critics...
More »With 8 gizmos in a case, Nilekani sets out to give 1.2 bn people an identity
Packed into what look like two medium-sized suitcases are eight essentials — an iris scanner, a fingerprint machine, a camera, a laptop, a computer screen linked to the laptop, an Internet data card, a pen drive and a printer. Armed with kits like these, Nandan Nilekani and his team at the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will kickstart one of the most ambitious exercises in recent times — distribution of...
More »Not all that unique by Reetika Khera
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)’s ambitious plan of issuing a unique biometric-enabled number, innocuously called ‘aadhaar’, to every Indian resident has finally begun to generate a debate on citizen-State relations, privacy, financial implications, and operational practicalities. What the debate has largely missed so far, however, is the credibility of the UIDAI’s claims in the field of social policy, particularly the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and Public Distribution...
More »Drought-Hit Jharkhand, Boon for Some Farmers
Over 90 Kilometres south-east of capital Ranchi towards the Chandil dam are 48 villages residing 50,000 people for whom the prevailing drought has turned out to be a boon.The dam is an ambitious World Bank project meant to irrigate fields in Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal. These villages are declared 'to-be submerged villages'. In order to store water up to 180 meters above sea level to fight drought, the state irrigation...
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