In the month of June this year, encephalitis related deaths in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district grabbed the headlines. Actually, most of the children, who were admitted or died at Shri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH), hailed from East Champaran, Vaishali, Sitamarhi and Samastipur apart from Muzaffarpur. Unfortunately, till recently official data on the number of cases and deaths related to Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) was unavailable for...

-The Hindu With growing environmental distress, policymakers cannot shy away from adopting best eco-management practices In a report last year, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) called the Chennai floods of 2015 a “man made disaster”, a pointer to how the encroachment of lakes and river floodplains has driven India’s sixth largest city to this ineluctable situation. The Chennai floods are a symbol of consistent human failings and poor urban...

-Mumbai Mirror Modi, with his brilliant communication skills along with the media at his disposal, managed to convince farmers to give him a longer rope A senior farm leader had once told me in a regretful tone: “Whenever farmers are denied their rightful crop insurance, or they are harassed by banks for loan recovery, they come to us. We agitate, protest and resist the system’s bullying of farmers. But the same farmers...

-The Indian Express In his second term, Prime Minister Modi can ensure better urbanisation through greater devolution of power, and finances, to urban local bodies. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins his second term with an even larger political mandate, it is time to reflect on what should be the priorities in fixing our cities. The scale of the challenge is massive whether we look at the availability of clean drinking...

-The Hindu Business Line Vote shares are generally higher in rural India, because of the centrality of political power in meeting the needs of communities Well before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls have reached the half-way mark there has been a firm reaffirmation of the sharp differences between the urban and the rural voter. The levels of participation of rural voters in Karnataka’s polling have once again been far greater than that...