-Livemint.com The latest addition takes the total number of drought-affected talukas to 110, out of 177 talukas in the state Bengaluru: The Karnataka government on Wednesday declared 42 more talukas or administrative units as drought-affected. The latest addition takes the total number of drought-affected talukas to 110 (68 were announced drought-affected last week). There are 177 talukas in Karnataka across 30 districts. T.B. Jayachandra, law and parliamentary affairs minister of Karnataka, said that...

-Livemint.com No matter which party is ruling, onion farmers will always be the victims of a biased state policy Onion prices have plummeted and onion producers in Maharashtra are in distress. Union minister Nitin Gadkari has appealed to them to diversify their production to avoid a repeat of the situation. Such appeals are unfair. For one, the minister was silent when his government brought down onion prices by restricting exports, and two, thanks...

-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...

-Down to Earth Lack of access to sanitation wiped off US $106.7 billion from India's GDP in 2015. It is almost half of the total global losses A report—True cost of sanitation—was published jointly by the LIXIL Group Corporation, Water Aid and Oxford Economics recently. Oxford Economics mainly works on economic forecasting and modelling. It says that in 2015 lack of access to sanitation cost the global economy around US $ 222.9...

-The Hindu Kerala today is not generating enough jobs to meet the expectations of educated Keralites entering the labour market. Changing this is vital and doable Kerala’s development model is in focus yet again as the newly elected Left Democratic Front government is in the process of evolving a vision for the State’s economy. On the one hand, Kerala has made spectacular achievements in land reforms, education, and health since its formation. Amartya...