The accredited social health activists (ASHAs) — the first port of call for health care under the National rural Health Mission (NRHM) — will be entrusted with additional responsibilities, albeit with better monetary incentives, as the Mission Steering Group – the highest decision making body of the NRHM — has approved the proposal for involving them in activities such as spacing between births, promoting iodised salt and village sanitation. The ASHAs...

-Express News Service A team of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches at the house of an eyewitness in the murder of RTI activist Satish Shetty. The team conducted seaches the house of Vandana Murhe in Talegaon Dabhade and seized some documents on Monday. Shetty was murdered near a newspaper stall operated by Murhe on January 13, 2010. “Our teams spoke to Murhe and seized some documents from her residence today for...

-The Times of India The Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) is upbeat about fish and foodgrain production during the 12th Five Year Plan (FYP) period. While the current fish production - marine and inland is about 12 million tonnes and foodgrain production touched 250 million tonnes in last fiscal, ICAR's projection for fish production in 2017, when 12th FYP ends is 15-16 million tonnes. Foodgrain production target of the nation...

Rising wages in both rural and urban India have contributed to inflation, and managing price levels when wages are rising is key to deriving benefits from higher growth, the Reserve Bank of India has said.  "The pressure on generalised inflation from sustained increase in wage costs has been one important characteristic of the recent high inflation episode. Wage increases for unskilled labourers in rural areas continue to be at a rate...

-Live Mint At a time when India plans a multi-pronged attack on malnutrition in 200 high-burden districts, it will pay to examine the cracks in state institutions that have led to past failures and can still derail well-intentioned plans. Melghat, a tribal corner in the northeastern fringes of India’s richest state—Maharashtra—is an apt example of almost everything that has gone wrong in India’s response to malnutrition and child deaths. Every 14th child dies...