The significant expansion of the IIT system since 2008, after reservation was extended to student candidates belonging to Other Backward Classes, has resulted in a vexed situation in which these institutions are unable to find enough qualified faculty members, whose recruitment must also meet quota norms. Bound by the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act, 2019, the IITs must fulfil the important goal of affirmative action while making appointments. While the law is enabling, the benefit cannot be extended to many due to a severe mismatch between the demand and availability of technology research graduates. Last year, IIT Delhi had a staggering deficit of 30% in its teacher ranks, and there are 23 such institutes in India now, highlighting the scale of the crisis. It is in this context of large-scale vacancies that the Education Ministry tasked a committee to suggest effective implementation of reservation in central institutions such as the IITs, for
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With a debilitating death toll and an economic recession, India has had among the worst effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is anecdotal evidence that the pandemic and lockdown measures have led to new complications related to food consumption and food security for impoverished Indians. But an express indication of the possible scale of the crisis can be gleaned from the data from the newly released National Family Health Survey 2019-20 which was conducted before the pandemic and its impact. The partially released early data from NFHS-5 for 22 States/Union Territories — data for U.P., M.P. Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Punjab, Jharkhand and Odisha are not yet out — shows a disappointing record on metrics such as child nutrition and adult anthropometric measurements, suggesting the exacerbation now of an already fraught situation. NFHS-5 shows that four key metrics for the nutritional status of children declined in 2019-20 compared to levels in 2015-16 (NFHS-4) in many of the surveyed
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