-The Telegraph New Delhi: The gender gap in healthcare spending is increasing in India, and even educated and wealthy households spend less on women's health than on men's, scientists have reported. Demographers and other experts have documented for over a century how Indians discriminate against girls in healthcare and general well-being. New research now suggests that this gender disparity is amplified in adults and has increased over time. An analysis from two nationwide...

-HuffingtonPost.in Bindeshwar Sahu, a grain dealer, lives in Nauhar village in the Barheta panchayat of Bihar’s Banke Bazar block, a couple of hours away from the Buddhist township of Bodh Gaya. In early June, economists Jean Drèze and Reetika Khera, actively campaigning for the Right to Food Act, and their team of surveyors requested the Block Development Officer (BDO), Sanjay Kumar, to look into Nauhar’s persistent complaints of irregularities into the...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat government may be making tall claims about its "Kanya Kelavani" and school enrolment drive, but a report shows the state has performed much poorly than other states in championing girls' education. The Sample Registration System-Baseline Survey 2014 reveals that Gujarat (with 73.4 per cent of girls in school) is at the 20th position among 21 major states, just a notch above Rajasthan (72.1 per cent)....

-The Hindu Officials are still in the process of finding out requirements across the State Chennai: Nearly one month after the State government announced that breakfast will be provided in schools as part of noon meal scheme, officials are still figuring out the modalities of implementation, including the food variety and age group to be covered. “We are surveying the requirements across the State,” said a senior official from the Department of Social...

-The Hindu Confining it to just the Ministry of Rural Development would be the most retrograde step in democratic decentralisation in over a quarter century. If, as The Hindu’s exclusive on Wednesday indicates, Prime Minister Narendra Modi were to close down the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, it would confirm one’s worst fears about his government’s hypocritical approach to grass-roots democracy for grass-roots development. This was a lacuna that was evident in the ‘Gujarat...