-The Indian Express According to an National Statistics Office survey, while members of most households (99 per cent) wash their hands before a meal, only those in 35.8 per cent households do so with “water and soap/detergent”. New Delhi: WHILE THE government and experts recommend washing of hands with soap and water as one of the basic protective measures against coronavirus, a survey done by the National Statistics Office (NSO) shows it’s...

-The Hindu The Kerala government has been successful in putting the public health sector back on the rails Every year after the Union Budget, newspapers carry articles critiquing the abysmal allocation for the health sector. As the COVID-19 threat looms, doctors, healthcare professionals and state institutions have been regularly issuing guidelines on the precautions to be taken. However, the ubiquitous fault lines of India’s public healthcare infrastructure are being laid bare as...

After the outbreak of COVID-19 in China during early January this year and its dissemination globally within a few days, health experts have suggested ways to check its spread exponentially among the rest of the population. In the age of internet connectivity, work-from-home and self-isolation have been advised as solutions to ensure social distancing and avoid large-scale social gatherings. Experts have asked governments and private enterprises to keep people at...

-Down to Earth No funds released under Jal Shakti Abhiyan, MGNREGS works incomplete: District officials Over 400 kilometres from Uttar Pradesh’s Mahoba district — where construction of bunds under Jal Shakti Abhiyan helped revive groundwater — is another that paints an opposite picture. Madhya Pradesh’s Rajgarh district ranked 205 among the 255 water-stressed districts in terms of successful water intervention schemes under Jal Shakti Abhiyan (JSA) and community participation. Rajgarh district collector Mrinal Meena...

-The Hindu There is a link between disability, loss of employment and impoverishment in Rural India Of the world’s population, 15% live with some form of disability. Are disabilities associated with economic hardships through loss of employment and consequent impoverishment in Rural India? For lack of more recent data (the NSS does not cover disabilities) we tried to answer this question by using the two rounds of the India Human Development Survey...