-Down to Earth A 10 μg/m3 rise in ambient PM 2.5 exposure caused a 0.07 g/dL decrease in average haemoglobin count Exposure to higher levels of particulate matter 2.5 in ambient air can result in anaemia in children under five years, according to a study by Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Malnutrition and anaemia are rampant in India, with 60 per cent of the children being anaemic as of 2016, according to the...
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Health first, fiscal prudence later -Abhishek Jain and Karthik Ganesan
-The Hindu The government can balance LPG subsidies and ensure clean fuel consumption in poorer households Subsidised LPG prices have increased by a massive 50% in this financial year alone, consistently capturing headlines. What would be the impact of this in sustaining the gains of the government’s flagship scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY)? Since 2016, PMUY has provided LPG connections to 8 million poor households to reduce women’s drudgery and indoor...
More »India’s pandemic generation: 375 million children will suffer poor health, educational losses, says Centre for Science and Environment study
-The Hindu The pandemic also has its hidden victims — over 500 million children forced out of school globally and India accounted for more than half of them. The country is all set to usher in a ‘pandemic generation’, with 375 million children (from newborns to 14-year-olds) likely to suffer long-lasting impacts, ranging from being underweight, stunting and increased child mortality, to losses in education and work productivity, according to the State...
More »Make peace with nature now -Inger Andersen
-The Hindu This year can go down as the year when we set the planet on a path towards healing As COVID-19 upends our lives, a more persistent crisis demands urgent action on a global scale. Three environmental crises — climate change; nature loss; and the Pollution of air, soil and water — add up to a planetary emergency that will cause far more pain than COVID-19 in the long-term. For years, scientists...
More »An ecologically illiterate Budget -Ashish Kothari
-The Hindu On several significant items relating to the environment, allocations have remained stagnant or fallen In 1991, when the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh ushered in economic reforms that catapulted India into the global economy, I had asked him how he intended to balance rapid economic growth with environmental protection. He said that the experience of the West is that once there is enough money in the economy through growth, it...
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