The Niti Aayog recently released its National Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023, according to which the poverty headcount ratio declined from 24.85 percent in 2015-16 to 14.96 percent in 2019-21. In absolute numbers this translates to 135 million people exiting multidimensional poverty in this time period. In addition, a few days earlier, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released its own Multidimensional Poverty Index, which in a press note said that,...

DeCEDA/Qrius 2022 was a milestone year for India. India walked into 2022 with an infectious wave of Covid-19 impacting lakhs of people, the wave receded a few weeks into the year. As hopes for a post-pandemic recovery surged, war in Ukraine brought in new challenges for the economy. With supply chains disrupted, global sanctions imposed on Russia, prices of fuel and food shot up. Inflation, already on a high from pent-up...

-Press released by Christian Aid dated 27 December, 2022 * Study identifies the year’s 10 costliest extreme events influenced by the climate crisis - each caused more than $3 billion in damage. * Report also examines 10 other extreme events that caused massive human and environmental damage, mostly in the poorest countries. * The floods that submerged parts of Pakistan in June displaced 7m people and caused more than $30 billion in estimated...

-Press release by Every Woman Treaty dated September 30, 2022 Every Woman, a coalition of more than 1,700 women's rights advocates in 128 countries, including India, has developed the findings-based draft instrument (Zero Draft EWT), informed by extensive consultation with experts from all regions of the world, including survivors, frontline activists, medical specialists, practitioners, scholars, human rights attorneys, and policy-makers. This Draft of global binding norm focuses on violence prevention and...

-The Telegraph There is no mention of compliance with ‘good manufacturing practices’ or the need to make inspection reports public, leaving the process of regulation vague and dependent on whims of drug inspectors This month, the Union ministry of health published the draft new drugs, medical devices and cosmetics bill to replace the antiquated Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. Yet, most of the draft bill appears to be a copy of the...