About The ICIJ

The international consortium of investigative journalists is a global network of more than 190 investigative journalists in more than 65 countries who collaborate on in-depth investigative stories.

Founded in 1997 by the respected american journalist Chuck Lewis, ICIJ was launched as a project of the center for public integrity to extend the center’s style of watchdog journalism, focusing on issues that do not stop at national frontiers: cross-border crime, corruption, and the accountability of power. Backed by the center and its computer-assisted reporting specialists, public records experts, fact-checkers and lawyers, icij reporters and editors provide real-time resources and state-of-the-art tools and techniques to journalists around the world.

Our advisory committee consists of some of the biggest names in investigative journalism worldwide: Bill Kovach, Chuck Lewis, Rosental Calmon Alves, Phillip Knightley, Gwen Lister, Goenawan Mohamad, Reginald Chua And Brant Houston.

Why we exist

The need for such an organization has never been greater. Globalization and development have placed extraordinary pressures on human societies, posing unprecedented threats from polluting industries, transnational crime networks, rogue states, and the actions of powerful figures in business and government.

The news media, hobbled by short attention spans and lack of resources, are even less of a match for those who would harm the public interest. Broadcast networks and major newspapers have closed foreign bureaus, cut travel budgets, and disbanded investigative teams. We are losing our eyes and ears around the world precisely when we need them most.

Our aim is to bring journalists from different countries together in teams - eliminating rivalry and promoting collaboration. Together, we aim to be the world’s best cross-border investigative team.

What we do

ICIJ projects are typically staffed by teams ranging from as few as three to as many as 100-plus reporters spread around the world. These journalists work with counterparts in other countries and with our Washington, D.C., staff to report, edit, and produce groundbreaking multimedia reports that adhere to the highest standards of fairness and accuracy.

Over the years, our teams have exposed smuggling by multinational tobacco companies and by organized crime syndicates; investigated private military cartels, asbestos companies, and climate change lobbyists; and broke new ground by publicizing details of Iraq and Afghanistan war contracts.

Who we work with

To release its findings, ICIJ works with leading news organizations worldwide.  We are always open to new collaborations. Our stories have appeared in more than a dozen languages and with such partners as the bbc, including flagship program PANORAMA, LE MONDE (FRANCE), EL MUNDO (SPAIN), EL PAIS (SPAIN), FOLHA DE SAO PAULO (BRAZIL), LE SOIR (BELGIUM),  THE SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (HONG KONG), STERN (GERMANY), THE GUARDIAN (UK), THE SUNDAY TIMES (UK), PROCESO (MEXICO), THE HUFFINGTON POST (USA), THE AGE (AUSTRALIA),24CHASA (BULGARIA), ABC COLOR DIGITAL (PARAGUAY),ARMANDO.INFO/IPYS (VENEZUELA), THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (JAPAN), CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION (CBC) (CANADA), CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING - INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM CENTER (CIN -IJC) (CROATIA), CIPER (CHILE), COMMONWEALTH MAGAZINE (HONG KONG), EL COMERCIO (ECUADOR), EL CONFIDENCIAL (SPAIN), FINNISH BROADCASTING COMPANY YLE (FINLAND), FOKUS (SWEDEN), HETQ - ASSOCIATION OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS (ARMENIA), THE INDIAN EXPRESS (INDIA), ISRA NEWS AGENCY (THAILAND), THE IRISH TIMES (IRELAND), KOREA CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM - NEWSTAPA (SOUTH KOREA), KYIV POST (UKRAINE), LA NACIÓN (ARGENTINA), LA NACIÓN (COSTA RICA), LE MATIN DIMANCHE AND SONNTAGSZEITUNG (SWITZERLAND), L'ESPRESSO (ITALY), M&G CENTRE FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM (AMABHUNGANE) (SOUTH AFRICA), MALAYSIA KINI (MALAYSIA), MING PAO (HONG KONG), NDR (GERMANY), NEW AGE (BANGLADESH), NEWS (AUSTRIA), NORWEGIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION NRK (NORWAY), NOVAYA GAZETA (RUSSIA), NOVI MAGAZIN (SERBIA), ORIGO (HUNGARY), PAK TRIBUNE - PAKISTAN NEWS SERVICE (PAKISTAN), PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM (PHILIPPINES), PREMIUM TIMES (NIGERIA),RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY (AZERBAIJAN), ROMANIAN CENTRE FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM (ROMANIA), RUSTAVI TV (GEORGIA), SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG (GERMANY), THE NEW YORK TIMES,THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (AUSTRALIA), THE SUNDAY TIMES (UK), TA NEA (GREECE),TROUW (NETHERLANDS), THE WASHINGTON POST (USA)

These unique collaborations have been honored repeatedly. Among icij’s awards: george polk award, overseas press club award, john oakes award, editor and publisher award, society of professional journalists, kc kulish award and the investigative reporters and editors award.

Read More

Literacy and Education

Literacy level and educational attainment are vital developmental indicators in a developing nation like India as they are key variable of measure of development as they indicate quality of life, awareness level and also level of skill of people in the society. Better literacy and educational level definitely have a positive impact on the health parameters. Education parameters have an equal weight-age in the Human Development Index as well. Condering the importance of education, India has enacted Right to Education to ensure free and compulsory Education for children in the age group 6- 14 years.

Following tables have been framed to analyse gender disaggregated data on literacy and education:-

Literacy Rate:-

 As per 2011 census, literacy rate in India has been reported as 74.04% with a 14% increase to that in 2001, whereas the hike is maximum for rural women at 26% in the last decade, which may be attributed to literacy mission of Government of India. Overall female literacy rate in India much lower than that of male literacy rate.

The female literacy levels according to the Literacy Rate 2011 census are 65.46% whereas the male literacy rate is over 80%.

Kerala is the state with highest literacy rate at 94% and Bihar with the lowest literacy rate at just 63.82. Being a very vast country with second largest population, India has limited resources to make aware its below poverty line population about the Government interventions and the law providing them the Right to Education.

The highest male literacy rate is also observed in Kerala at 96.1% followed by Lakshadweep at 95.6% and minimum for Bihar & Arunachal Pradesh. Female literacy is maximum for Kerala, followed by Lakshadweep and lowest for Bihar & followed by Rajasthan. A little more than half of the females are literate in these States

( Details may be seen in Tables  3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4 )

Adult Literacy Rate:-

The adult literacy rate (15+) for male has increased from 73.4 to 78.8 whereas increase in adult literacy is more in case of females from 47.8 to 59.3 from 2001 to 2011. In 2011, just half of the rural adult females are literate against 76.9% urban females. 88.3% Urban adult males are literate against 74.1 rural adult males. Overall adult literacy is increasing over decades (details in Tables 3.5 and 3.6).

Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER):-
The Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) for females at the primary level stood at 102.65 compared with 100.20 for males in 2013-14. At the middle class level, the GER for females has been reported as 92.75 against 86.31 for males and at the higher secondary level, 51.58 and 52.77 is the Gross enrollment ratio for females and males during 2013-14. There were 93 girls per 100 boys in primary classes, 95 in middles classes and 90 in secondary classes during 2013- 14 against lesser ratios in the earlier decade (Details in Table 3.7).

Drop-out Rates:-
The Drop-out Rates were observed to be 4.66 and 4.68 in the classes I-V, 4.01 and 2.3 in classes I-VIII for females and males respectively indicating that the drop out at primary level is at par for both the genders but the gap increases in higher classes (Details may be seen in Table 3.9).


Number of Girls per 100 Boys Enrolled in Schools:- Table 3.8
Number of Female Teachers per 100 Male Teachers at Different Levels of Education:- Table 3.10
Number of Females per 100 Males in University Education in Major Disciplines:- Table 3.11

Read More

Union Budget-key features

Agriculture and allied - Key Features (Union Budget 2016-17) 

Focus areas:
 • First Pillar is Agriculture - focus on doubling farmers’ income in five years.
 • Enhancing expenditure in priority areas of farm and rural sector, social sector, infrastructure sector employment generation.

Agriculture and Farmers’ Wellbeing: 
• Thanks to farmers, we can think beyond Food Security. Need to bring income security. Govt. interventions to be reoriented so as to double the income of farmers by 2022.
• Optimal use of water – bring 28.5 lakh hectares under irrigation under mission mode implementation of PMKSY.
• Initial corpus of approx Rs. 20,000 crore under NABARD to create a dedicated Long Term Irrigation Fund.
• Multilateral funding for implementing major programme for sustainable management of ground water resources, estimated cost of Rs. 6,000 crore.
• Soil health card scheme has target to cover all 14 crore farm holdings by March 2017.
• 2000 model retail outlets of Fertilizers to be provided soil and seed testing facilities in 3 years.
• Fertilizer companies to co-market city compost – a policy to convert city waste into compost approved under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
• 5 lakh farm ponds and dug wells in rain fed areas to be taken up under MNREGA.
• Creation of 10 lakh compost pits for organic manure to be taken up under MNREGA.
• Promotion of organic farming with Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojna (PKVY) and value chain development in North East. Total provision of Rs 412 crore made for both.
• Assigned Rs 500 crore for enhancing production of pulses under National Food Security Mission (NFSM). Number of districts to be covered increased to 622.
• Common e-market platform in wholesale markets for a Unified Agricultural Marketing to be dedicated to Nation on 14-April-2016. States require to amend APMC Acts to join this platform.
• Provision of Rs 19,000 crore made to target adding of 2.23 lakh kms of roads under PMGSY (PM Gram Sadak Yojna) to connect remaining 65,000 habitats by 2019.
• Target for Agricultural credit increased to Rs 9 lakh crore. Provided Rs 15000 crore BE for interest subvention for farmers.
• Provision of Rs 5500 crore made for Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY).
• Promoting the use of refrigerated containers, by reducing basic custom duty (BCD) to 5% and   excise duty to 6%.
• Promoting pack-houses and ripening chambers – concessional BCD of 5% for ‘cold chain including pre-cooling unit, pack houses, sorting and grading lines and ripening chambers’.
• 100% FDI through FIPB route for marketing of food products that are produced or manufactured in India. To make food trade and processing industry more efficient.

Allied Provisions:
• All remaining villages to be electrified within next 1000 days. As of 23-Feb-2016, a total of 13,000 villages are not electrified.
• 89 irrigation projects languishing under Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP) to be fast tracked. Ensure 23 of these completed before March 2017.
• Farmers to be encouraged to take up allied activities. Rs 850 crore over next few years for Pasudhan Sanjivini, Nakul Swasthya Patra, E-Pashudhan Haat and National Genomic centre.
• Online Procurement System to be undertaken by FCI. States to be encouraged to take up decentralised procurement.
• To improve efficiency and performance of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) - National Level Competition for KVKs with award of Rs 50 lakhs.
• Modernisation of land records with a revamped program from 1-April-2016.
• On the whole, for rural development, total of Rs 87,765 crore provided.
• New ports to be created and works expedited in National Waterways.
• Every new scheme being sanctioned will have a sunset date and outcome review.
• National Centre for Cold-chain Development (NCCD) exempted from Service Tax for its knowledge dissemination activities.

Allocations of Important Ministries, Sectors

For details on Direct Tax Click Here

Read More

Project Loon

 What is Project Loon?

This is a R&D project being developed by Google X with the mission of providing Internet access to rural and remote areas

Project uses high-altitude balloons placed in the stratosphere at an altitude of about 32 km to create an aerial wireless network with up to 3G-like speeds

Why Stratosphere? because of its relatively low wind speeds and minimal turbulence

Pilot Project:  New Zealand, California(U.S.), and BrazilTechnology designed in the project could allow countries to avoid using expensive fiber cable that would have to be installed underground to allow users to connect to Internet.

Read More