In an important revelation, a recent study in one of the world’s most renowned health research journals, “Lancet”, has found that “model” Gujarat is one of the three states where the Suicide Death Rate (SDR) among women has gone up. The other two major states, whose women’s SDR has shown an upward trend during the 26-years study – 1990 to 2016 – period are Bihar and Rajasthan.

  Thousands of adivasis and forest dwellers from across Odisha, mostly from tribal regions, marched in a protest rally on September 28 under the banner of Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), Odisha, at Lower PMG, Bhubaneswar, raising concern over “anti-tribal” and “anti-forest dweller” laws like Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016 (commonly known as CAMPA) and Draft National Forest Policies 2018.

  A 13-state survey carried out a Delhi-based non-profit organization, CMS India, has found that in “model” Gujarat’s just about 12% households households feel that the Narendra Modi government is “committed” towards reducing corruption, which is the lowest of all states, with the sole exception of Andhra Pradesh, where just about 2% of feel that way.

  Hundreds of elderly, widows, single women and differently-abled persons from different districts of Jharkhand gathered near the Raj Bhavan in Ranchi for a public hearing organized by the Jharkhand Right to Food Campaign and Pension Parishad demanding the right to universal social security pensions ahead of World Elderly Day on October 1.

  A recent research paper, “The impact of women’s age at marriage on own and spousal labor market outcomes in India: causation or selection?” has said that even though women earn nearly half of what men earn, a delay in marriage, at least in India, has “no significant impact” on their earnings.

A just-published paper, “Political role models and child marriage in India”, has concluded that the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments, enacted in 1993, which stipulate reservation of pradhans’ positions in one-third of districts by rotation, has led to a situation where the “likelihood of child marriage decreases by 20 percentage points, and age at marriage increases by 2.3 years”, even as delaying the “gauna ceremony is delayed by 1.6 years.”

  A just-released study “State of Working India 2018”, prepared by the Centre for Sustainable Employment of the Azim Premji University, has said that if in 1970s and 1980s, when GDP growth was around 3-4%, employment growth was around 2%, but “since the 1990s, and particularly in the 2000s, GDP growth has accelerated to 7% but employment growth has slowed to 1% or even less.”

  Fresh data released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), released this month, show that while India ranks 130 out of 189 countries in human development index (HDI), with HDI value of 0.640 on a scale of 1, this is “below the average of 0.645 for countries in the medium human development group”, even though it is “above the average of 0.638 for countries in South Asia.”

  The United Nations (UN) secretary-general’s  annual report  to the ongoing 39th session of the Human Rights Council has taken strong exception to the manner the Government of India has been using “reprisals” against the human rights defenders who have been “cooperating” with the United Nations’ (UN’s) different panels.

  The Chinese Communist Party Central Committee's powerful English language daily "Global Times" has taken strong exception to what it has called "twice-postponed two plus two ministerial dialogue between the US and India", which took place on September 6 in New Delhi, saying the meetings suggest "India views China as the main threat to its rise."

  Gallup, a well-known American research-based global performance-management consulting company with expertise in public opinion polls, has said that Indians' life ratings have been consistently going down, from 5 on a scale 10 in 2010 to to 4 in 2017. Pointing out that India's life ratings “are especially low in the rural East”, where almost half of residents "struggle to afford food", Gallup, in its new findings has predicted, regional disparities “may affect 2019 parliamentary elections.”

  The World Bank in its latest assessment has found the Ganga rejuvenation project “unsatisfactory and risky”, underlining, the risk today is “substantial”. Noting this, a two-series report on Ganga says, this is a clear departure from its earlier assessment in the report “Implementation Status and Result Report” of May 2018 when it found the project’s implementation “moderately unsatisfactory”.

A just released study has found that India has the distinction of having the third highest number of gun-related deaths out of 195 countries surveyed. Published by the American Medical Association, the study, released on August 28, shows that a total of 26,500 firearm-related deaths took place in India in 2016. Brazil tops the list with 43,200 deaths, followed by United States 37,200.

  Sharply criticizing the Government of India for the “withdrawal of the state from the public sphere, especially that pertaining to where the majority of Indians and especially women live and labour”, a UN Women-sponsored study says that there has been “declining investment in public provisioning of… goods and services that have a direct impact on … unpaid and paid work of women.”

  Three senior economists, one of whom is a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India, Prof Ravindra H Dholakia, have questioned the methodology adopted by the Government of India in 2015 for calculating gross domestic product (GDP), suggesting, while replacing the base year from 2004-05 to 2011–12, a much higher industrial growth rate has been estimated than what actually is the case.

  A top New York-based data analysis firm, CEIC Data, has  revealed  that India's investment accounted for 30.8 % of its nominal GDP in March 2018, a little higher than 30.1 % in the previous quarter. However, it conceded, India's investment share of nominal GDP data from June 2004 to March 2018 averaged 35.1 %, as against the all-time high of 41.2 % in September 2011. It reached a record low of 29.6 % in March 2017, post-demonetization.

  Nobel laureate Amartya Sen in early 1990s, referring to the fact that there are far more men than women in India, relative to developed countries, dubbed this as "the missing women phenomenon". The reasons he cited included sex-selective abortion and excess female mortality at early ages due to parental preferences for sons.