-The Hindu The latest GDP data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) raise more questions than they answer. While on the face of it, the projection of 7.6 per cent growth at constant prices for the fiscal year ending March 31 sounds both attainable and impressive, a closer look at the other sets of numbers, including the third-quarter reading, raises some flags. The pace of economic expansion is estimated to...

-The India Express For the health, dignity and safety of women in slums, a comprehensive policy for the maintenance and construction of public toilets is needed. Living in a slum in Bandra West close to the railway station, Vijaya wakes up every morning to anxiety over the trek she and her daughter must take into the open, carrying water cans, to answer nature’s call. They could use the community toilet nearby, but...

-Hindustan Times Ranchi: Green cover and wildlife population in Jharkhand’s sanctuaries are under threat from unchecked stone quarries, tree felling and construction work in the buffer zones of the wildlife reserves in the state. With the state government yet to send proposals to the Centre to declare 10 of the 11 wildlife sanctuaries as ecologically sensitive zones (ESZs), the threat has increased, say conversationalists and wildlife experts. Until now, only the Dalma wildlife...

-The Hindu The Health Ministry’s plan for a malaria-free India by 2030 is laudable, but grand pronouncements are meaningless as long as manipulated data distort our knowledge and bad governance impedes genuine attempts to fight the disease This month, the Health Ministry will unveil an ambitious new plan to eliminate malaria from the country by 2030. A malaria-free India certainly sounds like a dream, or maybe an early campaign promise: the disease...

-The Indian Express As it completes 10 years, there is enough evidence to show that India needs the MGNREGA Nearly a year ago, the prime minister made a statement in Parliament about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). He said: “My political understanding tells me, don’t ever stop MNREGA… because MNREGA is a living monument to your [the Congress’s] failures. After 60 years of independence, you had to...