That Indian policy makers have had little or no empathy for the social sector and they are more concerned about business interests is widely known. However, a top international survey of five nations has provided convincing data showing that 38% of India's policy makers have little or no knowledge of even the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030. The report says, as many as 15% of Indian policy makers have no knowledge of SDGs, which is the highest among the five nations surveyed. Further, 23% said have "not much" knowledge about SDGs.

  Did Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his chief ministership of Gujarat, encourage the much abused cow vigilantism, which allegedly is terrorizing minorities and Dalits across India? It would seem so, if the new report, “Lynching without End”, published by a civil rights network, Citizens against Hate, is any indication.

India's ranking among "competing" nations Even as pointing out that India has slipped by one rank in the world competitive ranking from 39th last year to 40th this year, after massive upward swing over two previous years, the high-pofile Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) in its new  report  has found India's ranking extremely poor in providing business environment to investors.

Pipavav port visible on way to Shiyalbet The Gujarat government hasn’t yet provided a permanent physician for the “remote” island, Shiyalbet, with a population of about 15,000 off Saurashtra coast, even though it is three weeks past the cut-off date set by the Gujarat High Court for providing a doctor to the sub-health centre in the village.

  Well-known investigative journalist Rana Ayyub, whose book "Gujarat Files",  based  on her sting operations of Gujarat government officials created a huge stir last year, has alleged that a new vicious round of character assassination against her has begun over the last one week, timed with the release of the Hindi edition her book.

  A high-profile  study , carried out by well-known international health journal, “Lancet”, has calculated that India’s health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) ranking is a poor 127th among 188 countries it has analyzed to find out how well are different countries across the globe are doing for achieving the United Nation’s goals.

  A new Government of India interactive  atlas  has revealed that Gujarat’s 54.9% of women in the age group 14-49 are anemic as against the national average of 53%. Out of 21 major Indian states, the  data  show, 14 states have a lower percentage of anemic women than that of Gujarat.

  A new study in a top US medical journal has raised the alarm that "while both males and females in India had higher odds of mortality than their US counterparts, Indian female assault patients had a 40 times higher odds of death than US females", wondering whether "this difference in mortality attributable to potential delay between injury time and medical attention, along with limited prehospital care services and access to affordable surgical care."

Nuances of GDP-1 Following one of the  lowest  Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates in recent years, 5.7%, in the second quarter of the financial year 2017-18, India’s top rating agency, Crisil, has said that this has brought “demonetisation pain” and goods and services tax (GST) “anxiety” again the fore.

  In a shocking revelation, the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, has favoured coal as the source of power instead of renewal, especially solar, energy. An environmental overview of the second volume of the Economic Survey, released recently, says, the top report has "raised issues with investing in renewable energy attributing a social cost of Rs 11 per unit of electricity."

  In a stark revelation, about 90% of the female respondents in the age group 18-30 years, interviewed in an Oxfam India report to ascertain the impact of Bollywood films on youth, admitted to either being recipients of intimate partner violence (IPV) if they were married, or spoke of IPV as an accepted social norm, if they were not.