-The Hindu Its fifth edition has encouraging news but addressing discriminatory social norms must remain top priority The health system in India has been facing unprecedented stress during the COVID-19 pandemic which includes the looming Omicron threat now on the horizon. Against this backdrop, the recently released fifth edition of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 brings some positive news. NFHS-5, which presents a bird’s eye view of the state of the...

-Scroll.in Medical admissions have been paralysed by the government’s inability to offer a rationale for the income criteria used to define economically weaker sections For nearly two weeks now, hospital services in Delhi have been crippled by a strike by resident doctors over the deadlock in admissions to postgraduate medical courses. On Monday, the police allegedly thrashed and detained protesting doctors, registering a case against them, which prompted their association to announce...

-The Hindu Business Line At present, panchayats make no contribution to the design of schemes. Their autonomy is negligible. This needs to change Decentralisation has long been recognised as an efficient instrument for promoting economic democracy, and delivering services to meet the needs of people. There are three different channels for decentralisation — political, administrative and fiscal. Political decentralisation promotes trust and cooperation between government agencies and citizens. Administrative decentralisation enables authority...

-TheWire.in Millions of school children in India, especially from poor families, dropped out of school over the past two years because of the COVID health emergency. Raghav Paswan, a vegetable vendor from East Delhi has two school-age children, 12-year-old Vinita and nine-year-old Gita, who have not gone to school for the past two years because of the pandemic. Paswan’s meagre income has dropped further during the pandemic, to the point where he could...

-Down to Earth At loss: 2 million trees, tiger and its species, 58.03 sq km of critical tiger habitat The Ken-Betwa River Interlinking (KBRIL) Project will lead to the submergence of a major portion of the core area of the panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, triggering a major loss of the tiger and its major prey species such as chital and sambar, according to a new study. KBRIL is a river-interlinking project...