Articles by Sunny Jose

Can online education enable all students to participate in and benefit from it equally? Massive online education without addressing the huge access gap and disparities in digital infrastructure would not only exclude a vast majority of students from learning opportunities but also exacerbate the existing socio-economic disparities in educational opportunities.

Is the reservation policy earmarking a 10% quota for the economically weaker sections of the “general category” empirically founded and justifiable? An analysis of 445 premier higher education institutions finds that this section of students already had about 28% of representation—that is, close to three times the proposed 10% quota—in these institutions in 2016–17. This finding raises questions as to the relevance and possible impact of the proposed policy.

Assessing the progress made in reducing under-nutrition among children who are less than two years old in Maharashtra between 2005-06 and 2012, this article points out that child under-nutrition, especially stunting, declined signifi cantly in the state during this period. It holds that this decline can be associated with the interventions initiated through the Rajmata Jijau Mother-Child Health and Nutrition Mission, which began in 2005, and that this indicates the critical role the state can play in reducing child under-nutrition in India.

Does women's participation in paid work lead to their better well-being? This analysis, through a primary survey carried out on the outskirts of Jaipur in Rajasthan, suggests a mixed picture. Participation in paid work is likely to bring some benefits to women but beyond a point the benefits are context-specific - whether women enter the labour force out of sheer survival necessity or due to other reasons. These findings provide neither a neat narrative that paid work is empowering women by providing them with choices and freedom, nor do they convey that paid work is demeaning and devoid of any important benefit. Instead, the findings call for considering a context-specific view of the potential of paid work for women's well-being and underline the significance of public policy in enhancing the well-being of poor women in India.

We examine whether access to aspects of social infrastructure, such as toilet facilities, drinking water on the premises and clean cooking fuels, leads to a decline in the incidence of undernutrition among women, which remains quite high in India. The analysis, based on the National Family Health Survey-3 (2005-06) unit-level data, suggests that access to these three aspects of social infrastructure is likely to enhance women's nutrition in India. Of these three aspects, the influence of access to clean cooking fuels remains quite significant. The findings, which assume importance from multiple angles, underline the importance of policies and programmes that ensure access to social infrastructure to the poor, in general, and poor women, in particular.