Home Page of Dr. Saumitra Mohan

Surgical Intolerance in a Democracy                                                          *Saumitra Mohan           A slew of incidents in recent times have again adumbrated at increasing intolerance in the country, the intolerance of opposition to established wisdom, intolerance of contrarian views or intolerance of standing against the societal consensus. The same has been noticed more starkly in the aftermath of the recent surgical strikes in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. As Indians, we all loved the way our valiant and fearless armed forces crossed over to teach our western neighbour a fitting lesson.           Howev...

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and India           India is a signatory to the Millennium Declaration adopted at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2000, and has consistently reaffirmed its commitment towards the eight development goals. The targets of the MDGs converge with India’s own development goals to reduce poverty and other areas of deprivation.           India has witnessed significant progress towards the MDGs, with some targets having been met ahead of the 2015 deadline, however progress has been inconsistent. While India has achieved the target for reducing poverty by half, it is falling short of achieving the target for reducing hunger. The country has achieved gender parity in primary school enrolment, yet it is lagging behind on targets for primary school enrolment.           India has made progress in providin...

HDI: A Tool for Development            Human development is a process of enlarging people’s choices as they acquire more capabilities and enjoy more opportunities to use those capabilities. Human development is development of the people through building human capabilities, for the people by improving their lives and by the people through active participation in the processes that shape their lives.           Human development—by enhancing health, knowledge, skills and awareness—increases human capital and broadens opportunities and choices. The human development framework, thus, emphasizes that the true aim of development is not only to boost incomes, but also to maximize human choices—by enhancing human rights, freedoms, capabilities and opportunities and by enabling people to lead long, healthy and creative lives.   What is the   Human Development Index?   ...

Global Slavery Index: Tackling Modern Slavery In India           India has been undergoing a remarkable 'triple transition', where economic growth is both driving and is being driven by the rapid socio-political changes. Notwithstanding these remarkable changes and given India’s more than 1.3 billion population, there are still at least 270 million people living on less than US$1.90 per day. While laws, systems and attitudes regarding key 'fault lines' including the caste system, gender and feudalism are rapidly changing, social changes on these scores definitely takes time. In this context, it is perhaps not surprising that existing research suggests that all forms of modern slavery continue to exist in India, including inter-generational bonded labour, forced child labour, commercial sexual exploitation, forced begging, forced recruitment into non-state armed groups and forced marriage.       ...