-The Hindu Rates of fertility are falling fast enough in parts of India that population declines are on the horizon Two weeks ago, when the world population touched 8 billion, several headlines focused on how India was the largest contributor to the last billion and is set to surpass China as the world’s most populous nation by 2023. China’s population has begun to decline, while India’s population is expected to grow for...

-Livemint.com With sex tied to marriage, the first sexual experience for Indians is occurring later than ever The median Indian man has his first experience of sex at nearly age 25, the last among men from 67 countries for which comparable data is available, the National Family Health Survey released last month shows. The NFHS, and similar surveys conducted around the developing world through the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) system, help shine...

-Livemint.com A new paper suggests the second covid-19 wave had a more fatal impact on Chennai’s poorer neighbourhoods than richer ones Poorer communities saw far more excess deaths during the pandemic than richer neighbourhoods, evidence from a new Chennai-based study shows. Taken with data from other parts of the country, the findings suggest that India’s poor, particularly the elderly, may have disproportionately borne the burden of the pandemic’s fatal impact. In a study...

-TheFederal.in Fund allocation could be done much more effectively with the availability of current data, said Palanivel Thiaga Rajan The Tamil Nadu government has scope for conducting accurate state-specific sample surveys, similar to the ones done by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) to improve availability of data for taking policy decisions, said Minister for Finance and Human Resources Management Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, in Chennai on Monday (December 6). The Tamil Nadu minister...

-The Hindu ‘It is planning to develop minimum standards to enhance availability’ The Tamil Nadu Government will improve suo motu publication of data under the Right to Information Act on the websites of government departments, said Minister for Finance and Human Resources Management Palanivel Thiaga Rajan here on Monday. To a question raised during the discussion following the launch of the book Whole Numbers and Half Truths, authored by journalist S. Rukmini, he...