Bhakti Pariksha (COVID-19 Edition)
Here's a quiz to assess how well you have performed as a Bhakt during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Read more [...]
Tag Archives: health
Nirav Modi Scam – How much money is Rs. 11,380 crore?
The top 1% of India's population own nearly 60% of the country's total wealth. And our financial systems seem to have been fine-tuned to function best for this economic elite. If an extremely poor villager wants to buy a goat worth Rs 5,000, micro-finance institutes would happily charge interest rates of over 30%. Meanwhile it seems to have become a trend for our ultra rich to dupe public financial institutions of massive amounts of money and then Read more [...]
These Indians are still “celebrating” Demonetisation
All stories showcased below are thanks to People's Archive of Rural India (PARI). You can visit this page to read PARI's coverage of demonetisation to learn how India's most marginalized have been affected by it over the past year.
On Nov 8th 2016, the government decided to casually demonetise 86% of the country's banknotes in circulation. In terms of an operating strategy, the government very prudently decided to have none. They allowed Read more [...]
Quiz: How well do you know the ‘other’ India?
India is poised to be an economic super-power (at least that's what we've been told) and is expected to become the third largest economy by 2030. For decades, we have been obsessed with GDP and economic growth. What we don't seem to track and measure as diligently, is basic human development. How does India perform at indicators that look at stuff like access to healthcare, education, nutrition etc? Most of us in urban bubbles couldn't care less Read more [...]
A crash course in India’s Farmer Crisis
Jan 2021: India's farming crisis has been on for decades and what we are seeing right now is just the tipping point of systemic issues that have existed forever. It is completely reasonable to hold the government of the day accountable irrespective of which political party is in power. Here's a post from 2017 explaining the various components of this crisis.
India's leading rural journalist (and unfortunately one of our only ones), P. Sainath, recently Read more [...]
India’s Infant Mortality Rates are worse than Uganda, Bangladesh, Iraq….
At 7.3% GDP growth, India is set to be 2016's fastest growing large economy. However, as of today, a child born in Bangladesh, has a better chance of living then one born in India. India has far surpassed Bangladesh when it comes to economic indicators, but many of our social indicators continue to be inferior to those of Bangladesh. And you can add the likes of Uganda, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Suriname, North Korea, Algeria, Bhutan, Nepal, Namibia and Read more [...]
Keeping Religious Stupidity in Check – Section 377 and beyond
There has to be something seriously wrong when leaders from every major religion in India come together and agree on something. This is precisely what happened with Section 377 in December. Championed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and supported by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Utkal Christian Council and Apostolic Churches Alliance, some of India’s most prominent religious bodies decided to launch into a battle against sexual pleasure. Read more [...]
State Scan 2014 – Dying Children and Economic Prosperity
This year is beginning with multiple new state governments all promising better 'governance'. This post attempts to analyze a couple of key criteria which can be viewed as outcomes of good governance.
Here are the two criteria:
1) State GDP per capita - The market value of all officially recognized goods and services produced within each state per person in that state. This has been used as a benchmark of economic development in a state.
2) Read more [...]
A Baby born in Bangladesh is more likely to survive than one born in India!
The reputation of Bangladesh is not the strongest in India. Despite our own issues, most Indians associate Bangladesh with various negative images ranging from extreme poverty and a never ending stream of refugees to a test cricket team that is a joke.
There is no question that by most economic parameters, India has outshone Bangladesh with ease. For instance, in terms of GDP per capita (market value of all officially recognized goods and services Read more [...]
