-The Telegraph New Delhi: Bihar is among the states with the poorest progress towards open-defecation-free (ODF) targets with some districts requiring 500 toilets every day to meet 2019 goals, according to a report from the non-government Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) released today. The report said Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand, accounting for 60 per cent of open defecation, would need to accelerate efforts for India to reach its ODF...

When more than 30 children died in Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College due to Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) between 10th and 12th of August this year, it became a sensational news item for the Indian media. However, one cannot assume that the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath did not know that several districts of his state, including Gorakhpur were among the JE/ AES...

Will you go and make complaints to the same public official against whom you have a grievance? Of course not. However, in a judgement dated 21 July, 2017 by a two-judge Supreme Court (SC) bench, it has been observed that officers in charge of implementation of the National Food Security Act (NFSA), were also designated as District Grievance Redressal Officers (DGROs) by several state governments. Section 15 of NFSA The SC...

-The Indian Express Three years after the Modi government assumed office, the promise of job creation is unmet. The demon of corruption is not yet slayed As the triumphal march of the Modi-Shah juggernaut continues, smashing the feckless and disorganised Opposition on its way, it is useful to ponder over at least two of the grand hoaxes of the current regime over the last three years that have been impressively successful with...

-The Indian Express They are on the roads and in the fields. Farmers are worried, as are MLAs. 13 years after its anti-cow slaughter Act, Madhya Pradesh struggles with stray cows Nestled along a rocky hillock in Tikamgarh, this small village of about a thousand residents follows a fixed ritual at twilight. Before retiring for the day, the men of Dumbar herd cows wandering in the village’s lanes into a makeshift enclosure,...