Northlines
Harini Calamur
In the last five days, I have offered more condolences to people than I have done in my entire life. There is no family that I know, that is not impacted. A friend wrote to me on Facebook, “11 friends died in 72 hours”. Our professional circles see obituaries. Our WhatsApp is full of pleas for help. Our social media timeliness are full of people seeking the most basic things – oxygen, hospital beds, life-saving drugs. Everywhere, I hear the sobs of grief layered on quiet rage. India is grieving, most of us are bereaved, and it is going to take a long time to get over this.
What we direly need is national media with a moral core and a spinal cord
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100 million vaccinated - India has done a good job with the jab
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Northlines
Harini Calamur
Every year, since 2006, the World Economic Forum has been minutely analysing gender gaps and releasing reports. It looks at gender equality on four major parameters – economic, educational, political participation and health (including survival). When the rankings started, India’s rank was 98. By 2010, it had dropped to 112. In 2014, when the BJP took charge, the ranking stood at 114. In 2020, it went back to 112, and this year, it has dropped 28 positions, to 140. Two other nations in the neighbourhood perform worse than us – Pakistan at 153, and Afghanistan at 156.
If we dive deep into the data, it is even more depressing. The performance of India, in improving each of the four parameters of gender equality has been abysmal. On the economic participation parameter, India is ranked 151; on educational attainment we are at 114; on health and survival, we are at 155 (one place above the last ranked China); and on political participation,