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...

Jharkhand's government schools have a massive teacher shortage, a survey by Gyan Vigyan Samiti Jharkhand has found. The survey was conducted in 138 primary and upper primary schools between September and October 2022 to assess their condition after the Covid-19 pandemic. Jharkhand's school system was shut for two years, among the longest in the world. Teachers told the surveyors they felt that most students had forgotten how to read and...

The transport sector is important for the smooth functioning of an economy. The supply chains for various products and by-products (both domestically as well as internationally) can work efficiently only if the transportation of raw materials and inputs, and final goods and commodities takes place without disruption.   Due to economic growth, India’s annual CO2 (i.e., carbon dioxide) emission has expanded from 1.19 billion tonnes in 2005 to 2.44 billion tonnes...

-The New Indian Express He said that instead of spending on the PLI schemes, the Centre should invest in filling the gaps in our education system, strengthening higher education, skilling, research, and development. Former Governor of Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan has expressed concern over lack of focus on the learning loss caused due to Covid-19 among school children in the Union Budget, while a significant amount of money was allocated...

-Newsclick.in Slope destabilisation, soil erosion and sequestered carbon loss have increased, according to Ravi Chopra. Noted Dehradun-based environmentalist Ravi Chopra recently resigned as the chairman of the Supreme Court (SC)-appointed High Powered Committee (HPC) overseeing the environmental impact of the Narendra Modi government’s Rs 12,000 crore 889-km Char Dham highway widening project in Uttarakhand.  The Char Dham project, one of the largest road-widening projects in the Himalayan region, intends to connect the four...