The Economic Survey says, massive efforts are needed in the form of investment in social infrastructure, skill development and empowerment of women.
...and getting GDP to measure India's data economy, recommends Ajit Balakrishnan.
Gujarat Chief minister Narendra Modi on Monday said his government would make sincere efforts to bring the state's human development index at par with those of the developed countries.
'A recent compromise by the state government is accepting NEET exams for medical entrance.'
Khan said Pakistan was open for "any kind of mediation" and seeks peace with all its neighbours, especially with India.
The United Nations Development Programme has just put out its latest Human Development Report, containing the human development index (HDI) for 177 countries, with the data being for 2005. India ranks 128th (with an index of 0.619), which is a notch down from the 127th rank that it used to occupy.
The independent Chhattisgarh state Human Development Report, commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme and published in 2005, recounts the voices of more than 19,128 villagers from across the state.
Stating that a weak fiscal position continues to constrain India's sovereign ratings, Fitch said the next government's medium-term fiscal policy will be of particular importance from a rating perspective.
The more globally integrated the economy becomes, the more this inefficiency costs us, in terms of foregone export opportunities because of higher costs and more expensive imports.
At some stage this fall in the quality of life will begin to hurt anybody's popularity, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Fitch had last upgraded India's sovereign rating from BB+ to BBB- with a stable outlook on August 1, 2006.
The TMC, which is yet to fully recover from the 2019 Lok Sabha poll setback, when the BJP's tally soared from two to 18, is apprehensive that the AIMIM may act as "spoiler" in several assembly segments.
Most rich and upper-middle class Indians are greatly under-taxed. Worse, the government annually writes off over Rs 5 lakh crores through exemptions. This practice must be ended if the growth-development disconnect is to be abolished, says Praful Bidwai.
India's position in Human Development Index was 136 out of 187 countries in 2012. It ranked 134 in 2011.
The slide in India's growth rate over the last five quarters, with the figure for the current year (2012-13) now projected to touch a 10-year low of five per cent, has thrown those who used the gross domestic product benchmark in the past to claim exceptional performance into a tizzy.
'Breaking down silos and ensuring a more integrated governance process is just as important to performance.' 'It has been a major priority in the last six years, especially in national security,' External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar points out when delivering the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture-2020: India and the Post-Covid World.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has faced a lot of flak on the Gujarat development mode. On Tuesday, criticism came from an unexpected corner when principal of St Xavier's College in Mumbai, one of the premiere institutions, sent out a letter to nearly 3,000 students critiquing Gujarat's development model.
Three big cities -- Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore -- have been rated below average compared to other mega cities in Asia-Pacific in terms of keeping pollution levels in check, said a report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Delhi is the only Indian city featured in the average category.
The report argues that in the face of climate change, countries in Asia and the Pacific "will need to change way they manufacture goods, raise crops and livestock and generate energy".
Philanthropic activities tend to be confined by the limitations of a corporation's location and capabilities.
Warning that Christians currently suffer more persecution because of their faith than any other religious group, the Vatican on Tuesday told the United Nations that the denial of religious freedom threatened peace and security and precluded integral human development.
India's disappointing human development status is well known. It is a virtual tailender among the newly emerging BRICS economies Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa which are expected to become the engine of global economic growth as the developed countries slow down.
The Pakistani PM believed New Delhi rebuffed his offer of talks because his country is an issue in the elections in the neighbouring country.
'The condition of some of the Adivasi hamlets is worse than Somalia, worse than what the prime minister described.' 'There are instances when Adivasis have to demolish the hut they live in to bury the dead as they do not have any other place to bury their dear ones.' 'There are tens of thousands of Adivasis who do not have land, a house or even good food to eat.' 'What kind of human development are you talking about?'
The quality of public sector management also affects the World Bank's development effectiveness in countries.
Khan stressed on taking austerity measures, working on tax reforms instead of taking loans, rooting out corruption.
The second Human Development Report 2011, to be released after a gap of 10 years, paints a dismal picture of the access that rural households have to electricity.
The question is how to genuinely assess the felt needs of citizens who are below a decent way of living, based on their consumption of food and arrangement for housing.
In a nation of 1.2 billion, only 62 per cent are literate. About 420 million poor live in only eight states.
'The Sena can quickly reduce most solutions to violence.' 'When in power, it will revert to this gene which is coded into it and we will no doubt produce entertaining and frightening moments,' says Aakar Patel.
India ranked 52 in 2011 index against its position at 53rd among 125 nations a year ago.
In a note to his students titled 'In a Background of Elections - The Development Debate', Dr Frazer Mascarenhas, principal of Mumbai's St Xavier's College, slams Narendra Modi's Gujarat and is in all praise of United Progressive Alliance's Rojgar Yojana and the Food Security Act
Acute poverty prevails in eight Indian states, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, together accounting for more poor people than in the 26 poorest African nations combined, a new 'multidimensional' measure of global poverty has said.
Six countries from the Green Group want to link climate change with the issue of availability of water at the ongoing UN summit on climate change in Cancun in Mexico.
Not enough people in the government or the private sector have the confidence in creating industrial and mining projects that offer win-win deals to tribals, says Rajni Bakshi.
Amidst acute poverty across South Asia, the five states of Delhi, Kerala, Goa, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have the least number of poor people in India, according to a new measure of global poverty developed at the University of Oxford for the UNDP.
Urbanisation in India has been like climate change in the world. It has been happening inexorably for decades, not receiving much attention, its significance not noted. 300 million Indians live in towns and cities, underserved by utilities, with inadequate housing, and now choking in traffic.
The results are likely to please the Indian government, which has been trying to impress on domestic and foreign investors about its efforts to improve the ease of doing business.
Facing a stiff challenge to stem the decline of the Left Front in West Bengal, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Monday asserted that the alternative to the Left's rule was anarchy and asked supporters not to be demoralised by the success of the opposition."Change for what, anarchy? West Bengal is in no mood to fall behind. We want to move ahead in agriculture, industry, education, health, human development. Is there any substitute to it," Bhattacharjee said.
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