-Scroll.in The government must empower these once proud people – now reduced to lining up for free meals – by giving them real rights to forest resources. Palghar district in Maharashtra is once again in the news for malnutrition-induced deaths of Adivasi children. The state government is in a flurry – with the governor having taken up the matter – and will likely focus on better delivery of its nutrition and health...

-Business Standard Oil marketing firms to help citizens enroll for unique identity number Subsidised liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders will now be available only those who have with Aadhaar cards. Those who do not have the unique identity number will be required to enroll for it in order to continue availing the subsidy. After the passage of the Aadhaar law and its attendant regulations, the ministry of petroleum and natural gas notified the...

-Livemint.com Pulses are important from the perspectives of food security, environmental sustainability and balanced nutrition Most pulses such as pigeon pea (tur dal), black gram (urad), green gram (mung), field beans (waal), moth beans (matki) and horse gram (kulith) are native to the Indian subcontinent and have been an integral part of our diet for centuries. However, the single-minded focus on cereals over the last 50 years—the green revolution in wheat and...

-Huffington Post Accountability Initiative finds rural India lacking in awareness of Swachh Bharat schemes. A survey of 7,500 rural households has found that 29% of Swachh Bharat toilets exist only on paper and of those that have been built, 36% are unusable. The survey was conducted by Accountability Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research in December 2015, across 10 districts in five states. The states included Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya...

-The Hindu Recent years have been a watershed in the public health programme in India. We have managed to eradicate diseases such as polio and tetanus, reduced maternal and child mortality rates significantly, halved the prevalence of tuberculosis and malaria and increased the life expectancy for both adults and children. These achievements reflect the unflinching efforts of the Indian government and all stakeholders in the past two decades to ensure health...