In 2013, the ministry of women and child development and Unicef conducted a survey of about 100,000 Indian households to gauge the health parameters of children and women. While a part of the report - the Rapid Survey on Children - was released by the government earlier, a large section continues to be under wraps. A part of this unreleased report that came out in The Economist last week shows the remarkable stride that India has made in improving its health parameters, particularly in reducing the number of underweight children. But it also highlights  uneven progress among states. Business Standard takes a look at the key findings:

The health of our children

Business Standard

Government approach to black money control is wrong

A FERA-style law?

Beijing's response underlines need for deeper reforms

China's meltdown

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stopped by for a short while at the launch of Meghnad Desai's new book, Hubris: Why Economists Failed to Predict the Crisis and How to Avoid the Next One, before leaving to catch a flight to Russia for the BRICS Bank summit. He seemed to be in a jovial mood and joined in on the topic of the day (why experts failed to forecast the 2008 financial crisis and how the next one can be predicted). "The more I hear economists speak on which way the oil prices are headed, the more I realise why astrology is gaining credibility," he said amid cheers and clapping of hands. It didn't end there. Later, when a journalist sought his views on Greece, he quipped, "Ask the astrologers."

Same difference

Janet Yellen may have started tapering Ben Bernanke's quantitative easing programme when she took charge as Chair of the Federal Reserve but the scamsters have her generously dispensing cash to selected recipients of spam. On Tuesday, a tersely worded email in her name urgently demanded details of ATM cards and bank accounts to get funds from the Fed and the World Bank. A confidential email address was also provided for confirmation. The giveaways were the inclusion of the World Bank and the signature, which describes her as "Mrs Janet Yellen (chairwoman), Federal Reserve Bank New York". If the scamsters had done their homework, they could know that US Fed cannot possibly dispense money from a multilateral institution, and that the Fed is headquartered in Washington D C.

Yellen's 'scam'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one of the better speakers among Indian politicians and has a flair for alliteration, particularly when speaking in Hindi. For instance, when  Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro)'s Mars Orbiter Mission reached Mars on September 24, 2014, he had said, "Today, Mangal (Mars) has got MoM", borrowing from the title of a 2011 Walt Disney animation movie (Mars Needs Mom). But sometimes such wordplay could go off the mark. On Tuesday, Modi inaugurated the India-Kazakhstan Centre of Excellence in Information and Computer Technology in Astana (Kazakhstan) that houses the India-made supercomputer, Param. Around the same time, his Twitter handle, @PMOIndia, quoted from his speech: "Super computer will do super computing and will be the reason for super commitment." The tweet was greeted with much mirth on social media. Suryanarayan Ganesh, @gsurya, tweeted: "Hope @narendramodi didn't say clouds do cloud computing and Tata Nano does nano computing." Snoop-Sarka

Off the mark

Apropos the editorial "Not yet one market" (July 8), I agree with what the writer expressed. One of the reasons for farmers' pathetic condition is the draconian APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee). Do we still need it? It can be done away with by following some simple rules. Another reason is the lack of storage facilities. Despite being a developing economy, India still does not have proper and modern storage facilities. Many a time, our farmers are forced to sell their bumper stock to middlemen at cheaper rates. If our farmers are encouraged to build good storage system on cooperative society lines -that is, a group of farmers should be financed by banks to build modern storage system - it will prevent unauthorised middlemen from hoarding food.Also, in the absence of good roads, farmers are unable to take their produce to distant markets which might fetch them good prices. Building good roads to facilitate movement of food grains over long distances might alleviate some of t

Letters: Alleviate farmers' woes

Apropos the report, "Vypam scam a silly issue: Sadananda Gowda" (July 7), Union Law Minister Sadananda Gowda's terming the murky Vypam scam a non-issue is very unfortunate and deserves strong condemnation. A scam concerning admission and recruitment causing the alleged deaths of more than 45 people is unprecedented in the history of the country, perhaps even the world.Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had also dismissed the demand for a CBI probe terming the scam as a non-issue. Our Prime Minister's reticence in all the controversial issues like Lalitgate, counterfeit certificate case of Smriti Irani and now the Vypam row, exposes his inability to take disciplinary action against corrupt party leaders. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, giving in under intense opposition attack and mounting public pressure, has announced his decision to recommend a CBI inquiry to the High Court. Mr. Chouhan's sudden U-turn might be a tactical retreat in a catastrophic weather created by multiple dea

Letters: Vyapam not a silly issue

Apropos the report, "Mandatory recognition for trade unions likely" (July 8), the lack of a mutually acceptable procedure to identify the recognised trade union as the sole bargaining agent, together with their multiplicity, has deterred many companies from negotiating industrial relations issues with unions in spite of their willingness to do so. Therefore, it is a good move to chart out a process for ensuring this, as mentioned in the report.However, going by history, will it materialse? The major hurdle is the disagreement between the employers and the unions on the right method to select the sole bargaining agent. None of the three - verification, check-off and secret ballot - is foolproof and the democratic method of secret ballot is frowned upon by both. The present proposal suggests the verification method and the Code of Discipline delineates the three-level check to ensure reliable enumeration of union membership. It hasn't been adopted till now. The government would have to u

Letters: Welcome move, but…

Agricultural marketing reform should first take states on board

Not yet one market

Now, EU has to face the challenge of Greece's exit

Beyond the referendum

That the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) is  stepping in to get rid of middlemen is highly commendable. It is not only the so-called middlemen but their associates as well, who make a fast buck. When will the transport authorities follow Irdai? Middlemen got eliminated when the one-time registration fee was introduced for new vehicles. The next step should be to introduce the renewal of driving licences on a pan-India basis.Angelo Extross,  PuneLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew Delhi 110 002Fax: (011) 23720201  ·  E-mail: letters@bsmail.inAll letters must have a postal address and telephone number

Letters: Middlemen elimination

This refers to the editorial "Thinking big" (July 7). While inheriting a sluggish economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team seem committed to leave no stone unturned to turn around the economy. However, while fixing goals, the team, particularly the leader, needs to think and examine the availability of supporting factors to ensure achievement of set goals on time.At a time when many of the announcements are yet to take off, the PM and the government need to rapidly implement reforms to instil confidence to attract more inflow of investments and to prevent flight of capital from the market. The government needs to take greater care to keep away from populist announcements, to avoid the inherent demerit of public losing faith even at a slight failure.While ambitious goals must have to be set to push ministries to work hard, unrealistic goals will force the team to abandon the set targets midway, which will lead to blocking of investments and losing of faith of investors. For in

Letters: Cautious on targets

Apropos the article "Why Grentry augured Grexit" (July 6), the writer summed up Greek economy's tryst with the euro zone nicely. An ultra left-wing party, like that of Alexis Tsipras, coming to power was a political-economic risk, not factored in sufficiently by the troika - the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Or, maybe, they were taking those risks to try and strengthen their relative positions in comparison with other regional trading blocks. Economic integration calls for a high degree of collective responsibility. Even in the most developed nations, measures aimed at equity and redistribution result into promises of 'free lunches' for the vast majority. This soon proves to be unsustainable. In integrated economic environments, the margin of error is very small because monetary sovereignty is given up entirely in lieu of market access and currency stability. This is according to the conventional wisdom of international economics, p

Letters: To err with Greece

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation is preparing to invest in the stock market. As part of the preparations, key officials had a couple of rounds of meetings with top equity fund managers in Mumbai. According to a fly on the wall, an important question to the fund managers was: "How does one get positive returns from the market always?" Fund managers did their bit to convince these officials that the fundamental trait of the equity market was to move both ways and that the behemoth should be prepared to take hits once in a while. But they were not sure if the labour ministry mandarins took the suggestion positively.

Up, down and sideways

At a time when states such as Bihar and Madhya Pradesh are grappling with the menace of mass cheating, Governor of Rajasthan and Chancellor of University of Rajasthan, Kalyan Singh, has urged universities to conduct cheating-free exams to enhance the value of the degrees that the students obtain. "To copy and allow copying in an examination is a mockery of youth's future because one gets a degree by copying but his talent cannot be developed. Hence, every university has been directed to make nakal mukt pariksha (copying-free examination)," Singh said, while addressing the 26th convocation of the university.

Testing times

The mood at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) offices these days reflects a sense of injured pride, somewhat similar to what prevailed at the Congress offices when a series of scams were unearthed during the UPA-II years. BJP and RSS workers have come up with many conspiracy theories to convince supporters that the media is misinforming people -as the Congress workers did during the previous government. The BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh government is even circulating a list of 25 people - not 45 - with direct or indirect links to the Vyapam scam, who have died over the past few years. The list concludes that most of these people died of renal failure due to excessive alcohol consumption, while some died in road accidents.

It's the media, stupid

Implications of Bharti's tie-up with OneWeb

A shortcut to broadband

But the govt should be more careful while setting targets

Thinking big

A member of Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) was among the delegates from five countries invited by the Chinese authorities to discuss the feasibility of the new Silk Road. Keen to impress his hosts, he picked up a few words in Mandarin, which he thought would be useful during a conversation. Imagine the puzzlement of his hosts when the NCP delegate responded with a XieXie (pronounced shay-shay, meaning thank you), when one of the Chinese delegates greeted him with a Ninhao (pronounced nee-how, meaning hello). The interpreter quickly stepped in to avoid what could have become an embarrassment for the Indian team. As for the NCP member, he admitted later that Mandarin was, well, Greek to him.

Mandarin is Greek

When BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava was asked during a press meet last week to explain how sick PSUs could hope to record profits if they continued to dole out freebies to customers, he said they should focus on making customers 'stress-free', that is, offer them hassle-free services. Paradoxically, BSNL subscribers continue to complain of frequent call drops, even as the operator has started offering unlimited free calls across India over its landline network from 9 pm to 7 am and made roaming free for all its subscribers.

Business Standard

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