Social Sector initiatives Archives - Page 2 of 19

Restructuring Centrally Sponsored Schemes for Vulnerable Sections: Flexibility and Accountability

Admin3 weeks ago3 weeks ago013 mins

Introduction India’s federal structure involves a complex interplay between the Central Government and State Governments in delivering welfare and development schemes. Despite substantial allocations and policy frameworks, the Central Government frequently expresses concerns over the inadequate performance of states in alleviating the hardships of vulnerable sections of society, including Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, women, children,…

Millennium Development Goals and Health in India: Progress, Actions, and Challenges

Admin3 weeks ago3 weeks ago013 mins

Introduction The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted by the United Nations in 2000 as a global commitment to address the most pressing social, economic, and environmental challenges by 2015. Among the eight MDGs, several are directly linked to health outcomes, reflecting the intrinsic connection between health, poverty alleviation, and sustainable development. India, as a…

Impact of Recent Amendments on the Autonomy of the Right to Information Regime

Admin3 weeks ago3 weeks ago015 mins

Introduction The Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005 is widely regarded as one of India’s landmark laws aimed at enhancing transparency, accountability, and democratic participation. It provides citizens with the legal right to seek information from public authorities, thereby making governance more open and responsive. Central to this framework are the Information Commissions—the Central Information…

Penetration of Self-Help Groups in Rural Areas: Socio-Cultural Barriers and Developmental Participation

Admin3 weeks ago3 weeks ago011 mins

Introduction Self-Help Groups (SHGs) have emerged as one of the most significant grassroots institutions for promoting participatory development in rural India. By organizing poor households—particularly women—into small, informal collectives, SHGs aim to enhance financial inclusion, livelihood opportunities, social empowerment, and community participation in development programmes. Over the past three decades, SHGs have been integrated into…

Poverty in India: Trends, Estimates and the Rural–Urban Divide

Admin3 weeks ago3 weeks ago011 mins

Introduction Poverty reduction has remained a central objective of India’s development strategy since Independence. Over the decades, several institutions and scholars have produced different estimates of poverty using varying methodologies, poverty lines, and indicators. While these estimates often differ in magnitude, a common conclusion emerging from most studies is that poverty levels in India have…

Public Health System, Universal Health Coverage and the Role of the Private Sector in India

Admin3 weeks ago3 weeks ago010 mins

Introduction Universal Health Coverage (UHC), defined as ensuring that all individuals receive quality health services without financial hardship, is a core objective of India’s public policy framework. Despite constitutional commitments under the Directive Principles of State Policy and repeated health sector reforms, India’s public health system continues to face structural and operational limitations. These gaps…

Foreign Universities and the Quality of Higher Education in India: Opportunities and Challenges

Admin3 weeks ago3 weeks ago012 mins

Introduction Higher education plays a decisive role in shaping a nation’s knowledge economy, innovation capacity, and global competitiveness. In recent decades, India has made remarkable quantitative progress in higher education, becoming one of the largest systems in the world in terms of enrolment and institutions. However, despite this expansion, the quality of higher and technical…

The Self-Help Group Bank Linkage Programme in India: Empowering Women and Alleviating Poverty

Admin3 weeks ago3 weeks ago012 mins

Introduction India’s development narrative has increasingly focused on inclusive growth, women empowerment, and poverty alleviation. Among the innovative interventions addressing these objectives, the Self-Help Group Bank Linkage Programme (SBLP) stands out as a model that combines financial inclusion, social empowerment, and poverty reduction. Introduced in the mid-1990s by NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural…

Mid-Day Meal Scheme: Nutrition, Education, and Equity in India

Admin3 weeks ago3 weeks ago013 mins

Introduction The Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Scheme is one of the world’s largest school-based feeding programmes and represents a unique convergence of education policy, social welfare, and nutrition security. Though widely perceived as a post-independence welfare intervention, the idea of providing meals to school children in India is nearly a century old, with its earliest institutional…

Aadhaar and NPR: Governance, Development, and the Debate on Parallel Schemes

Admin3 weeks ago3 weeks ago013 mins

Introduction In the last two decades, India has witnessed an unprecedented expansion of digital governance initiatives aimed at improving state capacity, service delivery, and citizen identification. Among these, Aadhaar and the National Population Register (NPR) stand out as two large-scale, population-wide identification and data collection schemes. While Aadhaar was introduced primarily as a voluntary, biometric-based…

Category: Social Sector initiatives

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