Data Driven Solutions for Complex Development Challenges

The world that we live in today is far from ideal; but does not stop motivated individuals from working towards mitigating societal, economic and environmental challenges. Across the world, various stakeholders such as government organizations, humanitarian organizations, corporates and investors...

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Gender and Global Health

Former President of USA George HW Bush once remarked,” Let me tell you, this gender thing is history.” At that time, this caused instantaneous outrage not just in political but non political circles as well. However, it soon died down. I believe Bush was excused (or at least wasn’t taken to the...

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Using Analytics Advantage For Data Mining

What data could do without analytics? Nothing, it would have just been a data collection with no meaning. Analytics defined data using data mining.Google defines data mining as an analytic process designed to explore data (usually large amounts of data – typically business or...

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Whither Impact Evaluation

Public programmes are designed to achieve certain objectives. Different governments, international organizations and multilateral aid agencies fund and implement interventions that intend to reduce poverty, improve public health and improve quality of education, among other things. However, these...

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5-points researchers may consider while conducting large scale surveys in slums

Metro cities are cosmopolitan in nature. The population in the cosmopolitan cities are generally heterogeneous which constitutes migrated people from different parts of the country. Especially in developing countries, the migration of labor is an important phenomenon of the urbanization process....

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14 to 40 in 20 years – Status of Rural toilets in India and SBM

Swachch Bharat Mission aims at Open Defecation Free (ODF) India by 2019. The erstwhile NBA, rechristened as Swachch Bharat Mission, is being carried out in a mission mode and a results based approach is being followed. It is evident from a recent tender from the Department of Panchayati Raj &...

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Innovations in thematic Monitoring – Need for composite scores in the field of Water Sanitation and Hygiene

Indian subcontinent’s attempt towards providing its population with clean drinking water and hygienic living conditions witnessed its inception prior to independence. In the post-independence period, the attempts were given statutory mandate through Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP) and...

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Scams and development

Yesterday’s article (dated 2nd July 2015) titled “Mother of all scams: For dole, pregnant five times in 10 months” in the Times of India ( one of the leading English daily in India), reports a disturbing fact related to one of the most important schemes – “Janani Suraksha Yojna “, under the National...

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Nutrition in India – Debates and Controversies

In the year 2005-06, the Third Round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS 2005-06) released state and national level estimates on the nutritional status of children under five years of age in India. The report noted that 40.4 per cent of the children in India were reported as underweight. Subsequently...

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Quality of Care in Public Facilities: Still a Big Question Mark!

It is a well-known fact that delivering in hospitals are much safer than delivering at home. Hospitals have experts who can help provide the best care possible for the mother and the baby. There are nurses who looks after the mother, provide her with emotional support and counsels her throughout...

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Towards a Data-driven Public Health System

Changing Paradigm of Public Health Over the last few decades, the public health system has undergone many changes. With the use of technology, huge volumes of data get generated at the health facilities every day. There has been an increased acceptance among the global health community that data...

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Training: Facilitating Evidence Based Policy?

Framing a strong policy is the keystone to the foundation of effective governance. A healthy policy environment stimulates a virtuous cascade of events and actions, propelling a country to prosperity. Yet it is astonishing and sometimes painful to see the frequency and extent of policy failure...

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Impact evaluation has become an important part of public-policymaking. Thousands of impact evaluation studies are conducted across the world every year, and most of them ask a straightforward question, “What really works?”. However, usually the question is followed by another one that “Is it meaningful...

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