-The Hindu It is imperative to promote community-based care rather than relying only on hospital services The deaths of 154 children in Bihar due to acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) has laid bare the precarious capacity of the State’s healthcare apparatus to handle outbreaks. AES has been linked to two factors: litchi consumption by starving children and a long, ongoing heat wave. As promises of bolstering the health infrastructure are being made, it...

-Newslaundry.com There were those who milked the AES outbreak for TRPs. And there were those who helped out while carrying out their journalistic duties. Even as Bihar mourns the deaths of over 150 children owing to Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES), a section of the media milked the grave situation to boost TRPs. Some journalists irresponsibly barged into the ICUs of one of the hospitals treating most of the children for live...

-Newslaundry.com Affected families have much in common: low social status, low income, poor access to healthcare, and the non-existent reach of government schemes The countryside in Bihar’s north-western region of Tirhut is in full bloom at this time of the year. One is constantly in the vicinity of mango trees and litchi orchards and a good portion of agricultural land seems fallow. The sun is excessively punishing but it does little to...

-The Hindu Bengaluru: In the arid Budnahatti village just beyond Challakere, the four borewells dug to provide villagers with drinking water have started drying up because of consecutive droughts. “There is barely one inch of water yield from here, not enough for everyone in the village. We have requisitioned authorities to drill three more borewells, but we may have to go more than 1,000 feet deep to get some water,” says Eswarappa,...

-Newsclick.in After economic liberalisation, barring a brief hiatus, the growth rate has scarcely moved up compared with earlier, with manufacturing -- the sector that counts most -- often logging lower growth than before. The “gross domestic product” (GDP) is a concept rooted in an epistemic position which is intrinsically incapable of recognising the existence of a “surplus” in society. A simple example will make this clear. Suppose we have an agrarian economy...