KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

-The Hindu Business Line The National Food Security Act could adopt standardised criteria to identify beneficiaries across States/UTs India’s development report cards have long been plagued by high incidence of malnutrition, making it an often-cited example of the nation’s growth conundrum. With the country being home to more than one-third of undernourished children, it is evident that the problem underlines the need for a targeted and multi-sectoral approach, with the benefits of...

-TheWire.in After an all-party meeting on June 1, the chief minister said all parties, including the BJP, unanimously supported the move and replied in the negative when asked if he faced any opposition. New Delhi: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday, June 1, said his government would carry out a caste-based “count” instead of a “census” to avoid legal complications. “We will propose a caste-based count, not census, to avoid legal complications,”...

-The Hindu A substantial part of the amount allocated does not reach the targeted groups because of a clause in the Act Bengaluru: Since 2014, Karnataka has spent an impressive Rs.1.84 lakh crore on the welfare and development of the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribe (STs), who jointly constitute 24.1% of the State’s population. Yet, government data reveals that the communities are lagging behind the State averages in several parameters. While...

-IdeasForIndia.in The Mandal Commission and Sachar Committee reports, among others, have indicated the existence of caste inequalities within the four major caste groups. However, data on this subject remain limited. Using data from a novel 2014-2015 survey conducted in Uttar Pradesh, this article shows that within-group inequalities among upper castes are significantly less, relative to the within-group inequalities observed among both Hindu and Muslim OBCs and Dalits. Broadly, four social groups –...