Category Insights

The chorus around India’s population growth refuses to die down. In his address on the occasion of Dussehra on October 5, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat raised the issue of population growth, its religious ‘imbalance’ and the need for a population policy.

Given the lack of financial support for students in India, the decision to enter higher education demands to be taken carefully. However, the 27 per cent of school-leavers who currently decide to go ahead — 38.5 million people — suffer from an information dearth. The country’s 1,043 universities, 42,343 colleges and 11,779 stand-alone institutions have vastly different quality levels, in terms of both infrastructure and performance.

Gender disparity signifies differences in women's and men's access to education, health services, employment, mobility, freedom, autonomy, decision making and resources to lead a dignified life. It is an indicator of socio-economic-cultural- legal and political status as well as physical and mental well-being. Gender usually favour men and are often institutionalised through law, justice and social norms. Indian women and transgender community still face gender discrimination in education, child marriage and pregnancy, sexual violence and unrecognized domestic work.

Agricultural incentives, intended to safeguard farmers’ incomes while achieving self-sufficiency in food security, are resulting in unintended negative consequences such as distortion of the cropping pattern and inefficient use of natural resources due to ineffective planning and implementation. Incentives provided for paddy production across the country are a typical example of ineptly planned schemes that have led to a flawed production system and unsustainable use of scarce groundwater, apart from adding to the government’s fiscal burden.

This annexation, unlike Crimea in 2014, was essentially targeted for the domestic audience to showcase the achievements and nefarious designs of the US as reports of Russians dodging and fleeing the country against the fear of mobilisation since they did not consider it their war.