-The Hindu The welfare challenge lies in providing assistance to needy households to ensure adequate diets without creating conditions in which they opt for inferior diets that are too heavy on cereals With the Kerala government’s decision to implement the National Food Security Act (NFSA) from April, the whole country will be covered by the legislation. However, if we expect the NFSA to improve India’s malnutrition statistics, we may well be disappointed....

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's public spending on health is about five times lower than the world average, the Economic Survey released today has said, adding the country lacks good models of health care for replication nationwide. The survey, in a section on social sector expenditure trends, has pointed out that the government's annual expenditure on health was 1.2 per cent of the gross domestic product in 2013-14, 1.1 per cent in...

-The Pioneer Centre must come up with a national policy The Supreme Court’s intervention for the lack of a national policy to help calamity-hit farmers is welcome. Regardless of what we have at the moment for them, the country's bread-earners must be offered all possible support to strengthen the economy. While taking up a number of public interest litigations, the apex court found that the Government had no policy to tackle the...

-Firstpost.com Farmers’ body Jai Kisan Andolan, a movement of Swaraj Abhiyan, in association with various farmers’ organisations and unions has sought a complete overhaul of policy framework related to agriculture and all segments of rural primary production. In a first-of-such-kind effort in the country, Jai Kisan Andolan, led by Yogendra Yadav, will present an alternative budget called ‘Krishi Budget’ on 1 February—the Union Budget Day-from a public platform called ‘Kisan Sansad’ at...

-The Times of India Indians popped more antidepressants in 2016 than ever before, indicating perhaps that they are now more open to the idea of seeking help for mental health problems. Around 10.6 lakh more prescriptions for anti-depressants were written in 2016 than in 2015, shows data collated by health information agencies. While 3.35 crore prescriptions (for new patients) were written in 2015, doctors wrote 3.46 crore new prescriptions in 2016....