Members of Opposition parties and of the scientific community have expressed their anger and dismay at the Central Government’s move of Friday in suspending Professor K.S. James, Director and senior Professor at the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), which conducts crucial data collection for the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), among others. The Centre has cited contemplated/pending disciplinary proceedings against Prof. James.
Some of them have highlighted the Centre’s continuing uneasy relationship with data-based evidence on development.
“It is most unfortunate that one of India’s most eminent demographers and a man who gave new direction to the IIPS is being treated in this manner. It is possible that the Modi Government is unhappy with some results of the NHFS-5 (Ujjwala, anaemia, ODF or Open Defecation Free) and wants to put off NHFS-6, which was to have commenced in June 2023, indefinitely,’’ Congress general secretary in-charge Jairam Ramesh told The Hindu.
