-The Hindu Studies on the Swachh Bharat Mission don’t confirm the government’s claims On October 2, 2017, the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) completed its third year. Over Rs. 60,000 crore has been spent on the programme, but despite its scope and importance, there is very little objective evidence about its performance So far the numbers that have been widely cited by the government are from its own administrative data and the Swachh Survekshan...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Child and maternal malnutrition continues to be the biggest health hazard in India sINCe 1990, while deteriorating air quality came a close second, according to a recent report in one of the world's oldest medical journals. The report published in the Lancet journal has found that besides malnutrition and rising air pollution, dietary risks, high systolic blood pressure and diabetes were other major risk factors in...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Lifestyle diseases like heart and chronic respiratory diseases now kill more people than communicable ones like tubercolosis or diarrhoea in every state in India, INCluding the most backward. This was revealed in the India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative's Report released on Tuesday. The report notes that while all states have thus made what's called the 'epidemiological transition' there remain wide variations in their disease profiles with...

-The Hindu We need to revisit the credit policy with a focus on the outreach of banks and financial INClusion SINCe Independence, one of the primary objectives of India’s agricultural policy has been to improve farmers’ access to institutional credit and reduce their dependence on informal credit. As informal sources of credit are mostly usurious, the government has improved the flow of adequate credit through the nationalisation of commercial banks, and the...

-The Hindu Seeks response of Centre, Punjab and Haryana govts. The Supreme Court on Monday sought the response of the Centre and the governments of Punjab, Delhi and Haryana on measures taken to counter the smog and pollution choking the national capital and surrounding areas. Acknowledging the dire consequences that continued exposure to peaking levels of air pollution would visit on the public, INCluding schoolchildren, a Bench led by Chief Justice of India...