ASHAs will continue to bear the burden of the government's rural health mission as a new order lists more incentive-based services. On May 31, a Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare order listed additional incentivised duties for accredited social health activists, or ASHAs, but was silent on the issue of regularisation of their employment. ASHAs, who bridge the gap between the rural population and the nearest health care outlets under...

-The Telegraph Union food minister K.V. Thomas today claimed the Bengal government had distributed only a small fraction of foodgrain specially allotted last year for 10 backward districts, drawing a sharp rebuttal from the state, as another confrontation with the Centre unfolded over figures. Thomas’s comment came days after Union home minister P. Chidambaram had voiced concern over Bengal’s “culture of violence” and cited casualty figures that were contested by the Mamata...

-The Telegraph The CRPF will review standard operating procedures (SOPs) on tackling Maoists’ “human shields” and conducting night operations, sources said today, less than a week after Friday’s controversial operation in Chhattisgarh that resulted in 19 deaths. The move came on a day a preliminary report by a panel of state Congress leaders suggested six of those killed were villagers in their teens. Yesterday, Union tribal affairs minister Kishore Chandra Deo had...

-The Indian Express   Time to take the bolder steps, bring FDI to small towns When the GDP falls below 7 per cent, we need to start worrying. When it is less than 6 per cent, we must treat it as a crisis situation. Growth models show that the robust investment rates already achieved, and twice the productivity growth achieved in the 1980s and ’90s, will get us 8 per cent growth. This...

-The United Nations The United Nations food standards body has agreed on new regulations, including the maximum level of melamine in liquid milk formula for babies, as part of its efforts to help protect the health of consumers, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today. Other measures adopted by the Codex Alimentarius Commission – jointly run by WHO and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) – include new food safety standards...