-The Hindu Business Line ‘Development not at the cost of food security’ After several farmers’ organisations, it is now the turn of agricultural scientists, representing various research institutions, to criticise the Land Acquisition Bill. On Monday, senior agricultural scientists told the joint Parliamentary panel, looking into the amendments to the 2013 legislation, that reducing cultivable land can pose a serious threat to the food security of the country. Representatives, including Vice-Chancellors of the Indian...

-India Today Experts claim that afforestation in the degraded areas include monoculture plantations which is not sufficient to create the ecosystem required for wildlife to thrive. Union environment minister may have a plan to regenerate the degraded forests of the country but that might not revive the lost wildlife and biodiversity because artificial ecosystem cannot be a substitute for the natural process. Forest experts have claimed that massive afforestation in the degraded...

-Business Standard 46% of rural, 23% of urban households purchased subsidised rice through public distribution system While a national list of the actual number of poor in India, based on the socio-economic CASTE survey, is expected to be released shortly, 38 per cent of rural and 16 per cent of urban households currently possess 'below poverty line' (BPL) cards, according to a new report from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation....

-The Hindu Business Line India’s expenditure on health is just a little over 1% of its income Health care in India seems to be entangled in a vicious cycle of low public investment and poor health outcomes. Our health achievements are dubious - home to a fifth of the world’s children who die before their fifth birthday and the highest number of mothers who die while giving birth. Poorer neighbours like Bangladesh...

-The Economist Wealth and child welfare are sensitive topics in India. As the country has grown richer in the past couple of decades, Indians’ health has improved only slowly. The story has varied widely from state to state. Governments of southern ones like Kerala and Tamil Nadu do a lot to help women and children; health indicators there show steady gains. In the north and west, even in better-off States, nutrition,...