-The Hindu Business Line Experts attribute it to higher cost of providing goods and services and more money under schemes Retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) for rural areas is higher than Urban areas for four successive months with West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Haryana recording double-digit rural retail inflation in April. These are among the 17 States that witnessed higher retail inflation in rural areas. However, in Karnataka, Kerala,...

-TheWire.in * According to the Union health ministry’s new Rural Health Statistics report, for 2020-2021, primary health centres have a surplus of doctors. * This could be true – although there are doubts about whether the report included the number of doctors on transitory, ad hoc appointments as well. * The report fails to capture the qualitative aspects of doctors’ availability at PHCs, including a hidden problem motivated by the absence of sufficient...

-Bengal Development Collective Migration has been an essential component of socio-economic and political change. People move away from their birthplace in search of a better livelihood, a safer neighbourhood, or a more inclusive society. Migration is a big indicator of the existing social and economic disparities between the place of origin and the migrant’s destination. As economic centres become centres for migrants, they gain access to cheaper labour, bolstering their own...

-TheWire.in The survey found that 83% of 636,699 households sampled had access to toilets, with greater accessibility in Urban areas than in rural areas. New Delhi: Nearly one in five households in India practise open defecation, according to a health ministry report released on May 5, nearly two years after the Union government declared the country ‘open defecation free’. The report is part of the fifth edition of the National Family Health Survey...

-TheWire.in South India has a higher rate of diabetes compared to North India, possibly due to its partiality towards white rice, which has a high glycaemic index. At a healthcare clinic in Thodathara, a village in the Thavanampalle mandal near Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, Dr Vijay Kumar calls in his next patient. “He is the most disciplined man I know,” Dr Kumar says with a hint of pride. Reddyappa Reddy walks in and takes...