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 Telegraph Number of girls born per 1,000 boys improves by three points from an average 904 in 2017-19 to 907 in (the partly overlapping period of) 2018-20 India’s latest population sample registration survey has shown improvements in child mortality and the average sex ratio at birth. But that ratio — a possible indicator of pre-natal sex determination and sex-selective abortions — has declined in 10 states, including Bengal. The Union health ministry, releasing...

-TheWire.in Even in a state like Kerala, higher human development indices have not translated into equally solid gender outcomes. An interesting public policy question that has emerged over the last few years is why high human development indices are not translating into a better ‘gender status’ for Kerala. The Human Development Index (HDI) in Kerala (0.763) is the highest in India. The HDI is estimated as the geometric mean of three crucial aspects...

-Down to Earth The attempt on the part of the incumbent government, to project the Bengali Muslim community as a civilisational threat to Assam’s indigenous communities is not going to help Debates on population control gained momentum in the state of Assam after the Himanta Biswa Sarma-led government assumed power in the state in May 2021. From the beginning of his tenure, the chief minister has been asserting that his government stands for...

-The Hindu The Uttar Pradesh government should understand that evidence backs the principle of informed free choice Many of us working in the field of public health and social development have been taken aback, if not downright shocked, by the recently announced draft Uttar Pradesh Population (Control, Stabilization and Welfare) Bill, 2021 that focuses exclusively on making a two-child norm a law, specifying various incentives and penalties for contravention. The burgeoning negative...