Rukmini S

🧵New on @dataforin's Law vertical: Ameya Bokil looks at data on homicides. How do homicide rates in India compare with other countries? Are they rising or falling? Which states have higher rates? Most importantly - how do we define homicides? dataforindia.com/homicide/

Final point: for this piece, our Head of Data Ops Apoorv Anand put together the first publicly available time-series of police-recorded homicide in India (that we know of). Please use our research, charts and the data in your own work too dataforindia.com/using-our-work/

One important finding I want to highlight: both the absolute number of homicides, and the rate relative to population have fallen over time. But this decline is entirely among men - the numbers for women have remained constant

There has been a significant expansion in access to electricity across India. In 2000, only about 60% of India’s population had access to electricity. By 2021, this figure had risen to 99.6%. Despite this progress, access to electricity is not universal across all groups in India. Virtually all households in the highest wealth quintile have access to electricity, while about 1 in 5 (18%) of the poorest rural households did not have access to electricity as of 2021. Not just is access unequally distributed, but the consumption of electricity is also determined by household wealth. India’s Household Consumer Expenditure Survey (HCES) captures electricity consumption by recording the number of units (kWh) used by households over a 30-day reference period. On average, an Indian household consumes 97 kWh of electricity every month. This is enough to power five 60-watt incandescent light bulbs for about 10 hours each day, or to run one window air-conditioning unit for about two hours daily. However, the richest Indian households consume more than twice as much electricity on average as the poorest households. There is also a notable difference in electricity consumption between urban and rural households. Over half of urban households consume more than 100 units per month, whereas fewer than a quarter of rural households reach this level. How does access to electricity vary across different regions in India? Read @nileena_suresh 's piece to find out: dataforindia.com/access-to-elec… #Electricity #Power #Lighting #India #DataForIndia

Bangalore, I'm doing a public talk at the National Law School on Wed, March 11. Come by to hear about what we're doing at @dataforin, meet some of my team, and ask us questions! Open to all, more details at the link (the second talk is the open one) nls.ac.in/news-events/cr…

With approximately 625 million workers, India represents the world's second-largest labour market. One important way to understand the labour market is by looking at unemployment rates. To measure unemployment, workers are asked how long they worked during the last year. A person who worked for at least 30 days in the preceding 365 days is considered employed, while a person who was looking for work or was available to work but did not work for at least 30 days is counted as unemployed. About 600 million Indians are currently employed, and roughly 20–25 million are unemployed. This puts India’s unemployment rate at 3.2% in 2023–24. In urban areas, the unemployment rate was higher, at 5.1%. But unemployment in India isn’t evenly distributed, and is higher among the better educated. While less than 1% of Indians educated only up to the primary level are unemployed, more than 13% of those with a graduate degree or higher are jobless. Female unemployment is significantly higher at this level. In low-income countries, skilled jobs may be scarce, and there may be a mismatch between skills and jobs. In addition, better-educated workers can often afford to stay unemployed for longer, and might hold out for a suitable job. How does unemployment vary across age groups in India? Read @akwaghmare 's work on employment to learn more: dataforindia.com/work-employmen… #Work #Employment #Unemployment #India #DataForIndia

For educators, private employers and policy-makers, the "skill-gap" is often talked of as a key labour issue in India. In this insight for @dataforin , @nileena_suresh looks at who in India gets vocational training, and what they seem to do with it dataforindia.com/vocational-tra…

@VigneshJourno Congratulations on a job superbly done!

This is my final Data Point for @the_hindu After nine years and one month, I'm parting ways with this wonderful org. I'm stepping away from Data Point, a feature that has been a constant in my life since the day I was recruited to build it nine years ago. Onwards and upwards!

@radhikasan Radhika yay!

Thrilled to be The Hindu's new Books Editor (non fiction), commissioning reviews and interviews, in addition to other roles. Do email me with ideas, suggestions, and pitches: radhika.s@thehindu.co.in And here is the my first books newsletter - do subscribe! thehindu.com/newsletter/the…

Please note: you must register to attend nls.ac.in/news-events/cr…

@doctorsoumya @DrLahariya Understood - thanks very much!

@Rukmini @DrLahariya Probably. Many countries are giving to girls first

Excellent piece by @DrLahariya on lessons from the #HPV rollout hindustantimes.com/opinion/the-le…

6/6. Chinnathambi’s only regret: the autobiography we had found him writing in 2014 is no longer with him. “I’d done about 25 per cent of the manuscript when this journalist from Thiruvananthapuram took it from me. He promised to help complete it – and find a publisher. I never saw him again.” We made an appeal from the platform of the KLIBF session held to felicitate him for the recovery of his manuscript or assistance for him to do it over again. Kerala being Kerala, volunteers were lining up before the session ended (which it did with the audience giving the 86-year-old a standing ovation). Image: The KLIBF session held to felicitate him and (right) Chinnathambi at 86.

@doctorsoumya @DrLahariya Thank you. In that case, why is it not part of the Indian programme? Is it to prioritise, given costs?

@Rukmini @DrLahariya Yes it does - where feasible & affordable. Vaccinating both sexes enhances overall protection and protects boys against certain cancers too. Is called gender neutral vaccination

As our work on @dataforin has expanded, so has our need to better organise information for readers to search, discover, use and share. Today, we're sharing a redesign. Product Lead @TheDataAreClean explains what's changed and why dataforindia.com/redesign-annou…

I wanted to do a proper explainer on life expectancy, and on this in particular - does a life expectancy of 72 mean that a 70-year-old today can only expect to live another two years? Well, no, and I tried to explain why.

I had no memory at all of something that now seems from another lifetime until I read Mike Marqusee's book, War Minus The Shooting

@merl_syrex It means 'strange' in Hindi and Marathi :)

@Rukmini In Sinhalese, “ViChithra” translates to colorful/beautiful. Curious whether this is the same in any of the languages across the pond :)

The deadline for submissions for this year's VizChitra is tonight! Have a look at the categories below and put in a proposal asap.