Histopathological spectrum of neoplastic lesions of female reproductive system-a two-year experience in Eastern Nepal

Background: Neoplastic lesions of female reproductive system (FRS) consist majority of surgical cases. The aim of this study is to find out the frequency distribution of tumors occurring in FRS.Methods: This is a retrospective study carried out in Birat Medical College, situated in eastern Nepal. All formalin fixed surgical specimen of FRS from August 2015 to September 2017 were subjected for histopathology and examined under light microscopy. All neoplastic lesions were included, and non-neoplastic lesions were excluded from the study.Results: A total number of ninety (90) histopathological tissues representating various types of neoplastic lesion of FRS were studied. Out of which 6 (6.6%) tumors were from uterine cervix, (including 1 cervical leiomyoma and 5 squamous cell carcinoma cervix) 45(50%) tumors were from uterine body, (all leiomyoma) 20 (22.2%) tumors were from ovary (including 9 mature teratoma, 1 immature teratoma, 6 mucinous cystadenoma and 4 cases of serous cystadenoma) and 19 (21.2%) tumors were from breast (including 16 fibroadenoma, 1 lactational adenoma, 2 infiltrating ductal carcinoma and 1 comedo carcinoma). Majority 81(90%) were benign and 9 (10%) were malignant. Most common benign tumor was leiomyoma of uterine body and most common malignant tumor was squamous cell carcinoma of uterine cervix both commonly occurring in the age group of 41-50 years.Conclusions: Benign tumor, leiomyoma is the common tumor occurring in FRS. Carcinoma of the cervix is the common malignant tumor

State of Working India 2021: One Year of Covid-19

This report documents the impact of one year of Covid-19 in India, on jobs, incomes, inequality, and poverty. It also examines the effectiveness of policy measures that have thus far been undertaken to offer relief and support. Finally, it offers some policy suggestions for the near and medium-term future.When the pandemic hit, the Indian economy was already in the most prolonged slowdown in recent decades. On top of this, there were legacy problems such as a slow rate of job creation and lack of political commitment to improving working conditions which trapped a large section of the workforce without access to any employment security or social protection.Our analysis shows that the pandemic has further increased informality and led to a severe decline in earnings for the majority of workers resulting in a sudden increase in poverty. Women and younger workers have been disproportionately affected. Households have coped by reducing food intake, borrowing, and selling assets. Government relief has helped avoid the most severe forms of distress, but the reach of support measures is incomplete, leaving out some of the most vulnerable workers and households. We find that additional government support is urgently needed now for two reasons - compensating for the losses sustained during the first year and anticipating the impact of the second wave

State of working India 2021 : one year of Covid-19

This report documents the impact of one year of Covid-19 in India, on jobs, incomes, inequality, and poverty. It also examines the effectiveness of policy measures that have thus far been undertaken to offer relief and support. Finally, it offers some policy suggestions for the near and medium-term future. When the pandemic hit, the Indian economy was already in the most prolonged slowdown in recent decades. On top of this, there were legacy problems such as a slow rate of job creation and lack of political commitment to improving working conditions which trapped a large section of the workforce without access to any employment security or social protectio

How household incomes were affected by Covid

What is the actual state of the economy? One way to answer this question is to look at the numbers from the Consumer Pyramid Household Survey (CPHS) to track the pandemic’s impact

Mere growth in a sector doesn’t translate to benefits for workers

As the Indian economy reels from the devastating economic and health effects of two consecutive waves of the Covid-19 pandemic, the latest estimates of the fourth quarter of financial year 2020-21 (January-March) brought some relief, at least for policymakers. The construction sector showed a 15 per cent increase in gross value added (GVA) in the last quarter as compared to the same quarter in the last financial year. GVA is essentially a measure of the “net” value of output — deducting the cost of any input that went into its production from its total value. So, a 15 per cent growth in construction GVA indicates the value of the output of the sector (after deducting the costs that went into its production) grew by that amount

Labour incomes in India: A comparison of PLFS and CMIE-CPHS data

The Covid-19 pandemic has created a need for high frequency employment and income data to gauge the nature and extent of shock and recovery from month to month. Lack of such high frequency household-level data from official sources has forced researchers to rely almost entirely on the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS) conducted by the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE). Recently, the CPHS has been criticised for missing poor and vulnerable households in its sample. In this context, it becomes important to develop a detailed understanding of how comparable CPHS estimates are to other more familiar sources. We examine the comparability of monthly labour income estimates for the pre-pandemic year (2018-19) for CPHS and the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS). Across different methods and assumptions, as well as rural/urban locations, CPHS mean monthly labour earnings are anywhere between 5 percent to 50 percent higher than corresponding PLFS estimates. In addition to the sampling concerns raised in the literature, we point to differences in the way employment and income are captured in the two surveys as possible causes of these differences. While CPHS estimates are always higher, it should also be emphasized that the two surveys agree on some stylized facts regarding the Indian workforce. An individual earning INR 50,000 per month lies in the top 5 percent of the income distribution in India as per both surveys. Second, both PLFS and CPHS show that half the Indian workforce earns below the recommended National Minimum Wage

Reading between pandemic’s economic shockwaves: Among worst hit are our teachers and small business owners

How has the pandemic’s economic shock hurt Indians across professions? We use Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS) released by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), to investigate what has happened to two classes, the salaried and the self-employed

Who was Impacted and How? Covid-19 Pandemic and the Long Uneven Recovery in India

We investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on income levels, poverty, and inequality in both the immediate aftermath and during the long uneven recovery till December 2021 using high-frequency household survey data from India. We find that the average all-India household income dropped between 30 to 38 percent during the months of the nationwide lockdown of April and May 2020. The subsequent recovery remained incomplete and was unevenly spread over the population even twenty-one months after the start of the pandemic. Households on an average continued to make 16 to 19 percent lower cumulative income in the post-lockdown period, but have mostly recovered after the second wave in the second half of 2021. Poverty more than doubled during the lockdown and was 50 to 80 percent higher in the post-lockdown period in comparison to the pre-pandemic levels. In the post-second-wave phase, poverty was still slightly higher than in the pre-pandemic period, and any progress in poverty reduction that would have been achieved under normal circumstances over the two years was lost. Inequality too spiked during the lockdown, but returned back to the pre-pandemic levels. Using an event study model we find that the initial shock of the lockdown was more severe for the bottom of the income distribution, but the bottom also experienced a faster recovery. On the other hand, the top end of the distribution experienced smaller declines during the lockdown but they have been slow to recover. The bottom deciles in any period typically constituted households working in contact-intensive, informal, less secure occupations that were hit the hardest during the lockdown, but were quick to recover when the economy opened up. The upper end of the distribution constituted households working in less contact-intensive, formal, secure occupations that were shielded from the sudden shock but were slow to recover

Covid-19: Impact on income inequality in India

Even as global inequality was falling, income inequality in India increased during 1990-2019. With the occurrence of Covid-19, the trend of increasing income inequality in the country is expected to not only continue but worsen. Analysing data from the Consumer Pyramids Households Survey, this article shows that inequality has risen sharply during the pandemic, with lower income households having experienced a larger decline in earnings