Policy UpdateAyana N K Background Meghalaya, meaning “the abode of clouds,” is a hill state in Northeast India covering about 22,430 sq km. According to the 2011 Census, it has a population of around 29.67 lakh. The state is predominantly…
When the price of essential kitchen items like onions, potatoes, or dal shoots up suddenly, it acts as an immediate financial shock to millions of households in India. For a lower-middle-class or vulnerable family, a sudden spike in vegetable prices means they have to compromise on health, nutrition, or other vital household needs. Historically, regular food grains like rice and wheat have always had a massive safety net managed by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) through the Public Distribution System (PDS). However, highly perishable items—like horticultural vegetables and protein-rich pulses—were left completely at the mercy of unpredictable market forces.
Puducherry is a Union Territory with a distinctive administrative geography. Unlike most states and Union Territories that form one continuous geographical unit, Puducherry consists of four separate regions—Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe, and Yanam—located along different parts of India's southern coastline.
Climate change is no longer just an environmental issue, it is rapidly becoming one of India's greatest public health challenges. While conversations often focus on melting glaciers or rising sea levels, the most immediate impacts are being felt in villages where healthcare systems are already stretched. Heatwaves, floods, erratic monsoons, air pollution, and changing disease patterns are placing unprecedented pressure on rural health services, threatening decades of progress in maternal and child health, infectious disease control, and primary healthcare.
Old-age pensions are one of the oldest tools of social protection anywhere. In India it sits at the crosshairs of elderly poverty relief and dignity. The Union government's main instrument is the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) which is run by the Ministry of Rural Development. It has operated since 1995 and today comprises five components - the largest is the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS). IGNOAPS was introduced in 2007 (NSAP, 1995). IGNOAPS offers Below Poverty Line citizens aged 60 and above a monthly pension of ₹200 and which further becomes ₹500 after the recipient turns 80 years old (NSAP, 1995).
Policy UpdatePragya Raghav Background Kerala’s welfare delivery operates in a state where geography, demography and social needs make reaching people effectively particularly important. Spread across 38,863 sq km and home to nearly 3.6 crore people, Kerala combines a densely populated…
Chhattisgarh, carved out of Madhya Pradesh in November 2000, covers 1,35,192 sq km, the 9th largest state in India, and had a 2011 Census population of 2.55 crore, of which 30.6 percent belong to Scheduled Tribes and 76.8 percent live in rural areas (Forest Survey of India, 2019). Nearly 44 percent of the state is under forest cover, concentrated in the Naxal-affected Bastar and Surguja divisions, which makes last-mile welfare delivery in scattered, forested, low-density habitations a central governance challenge.