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...

-VillageSquare.in The lure of processed fast food is not just an urban India problem - rural Indians are finding it increasingly hard to resist readily available junk food as a recent survey from the Development Intelligence Unit shows. Many of us have fond memories of drinking roohafza and eating homemade fryums.  OK, fryums are a deep-fried potato snack and roohafza might have fruit and herbs as its base but is loaded with sugar.  Still,...

-VillageSquare.in A new survey by the Development Intelligence Unit shows that obesity is a rapidly evolving problem, especially in rural India, and needs to be addressed through policies and awareness campaigns Thirty years ago, obesity was not considered a public health issue. Even as late as the 1990s, obesity was only seen as a western concern, whereas undernutrition or malnutrition was more of a problem for developing nations such as India. But the...

-VillageSquare.in A new study by the Development Intelligence Unit (DIU) sheds light on rural India’s eating habits, debunking several myths, like richer people eat a more diverse diet than the poor. In a sure sign of development, India has shifted from worrying about food security to worrying about nutrition security – ensuring its people get a richer, more varied diet. Simply put, a more diverse diet means more nutrition, more nutrition means healthier...

Scientific knowledge has immensely helped in combating the dreadful coronavirus and its spread. Within a record short period of time, scientists (including virologists, epidemiologists, biostatisticians, etc.) and their research outputs helped the commoners to learn more about the SARS-CoV-2 and how it spreads from one individual to the next one. Common people have now come to know how simple techniques and behavioural change like the wearing of N95 masks, maintaining...