-The India Express For the health, dignity and safety of women in slums, a comprehensive policy for the maintenance and construction of public toilets is needed. Living in a slum in Bandra West close to the railway station, Vijaya wakes up every morning to anxiety over the trek she and her daughter must take into the open, carrying water cans, to answer nature’s call. They could use the community toilet nearby, but...

-The Indian Express Telecom regulator says no service provider can offer, charge discriminatory tariffs for data services on basis of content Putting an end to the controversy over differential pricing on the Internet, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Monday ruled that differential pricing for data services will not be allowed in the country. “No service provider shall offer or charge discriminatory tariffs for data services on the basis of...

-The Hindu The Health Ministry’s plan for a malaria-free India by 2030 is laudable, but grand pronouncements are meaningless as long as manipulated data distort our knowledge and bad governance impedes genuine attempts to fight the disease This month, the Health Ministry will unveil an ambitious new plan to eliminate malaria from the country by 2030. A malaria-free India certainly sounds like a dream, or maybe an early campaign promise: the disease...

-The Hindu The health sector typifies the hands-off policy of the government in areas that impact welfare and livelihoods. An air of anticipation and optimism greeted the formation and installation of the new government in 2014. A widely held view was that it would be much more decisive than the previous dispensation in providing some direction to public policy. Twenty months have passed and the initial sense of optimism has been replaced...

-The Indian Express Incidentally, the DPCC report claimed that “trends” showed that levels of PM10 and PM2.5 in the city were “decreasing”. New Delhi: A senior scientist with the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) told the Delhi High Court Thursday that pollution levels in the city will never come down to “safe limits” because of its “geographical disadvantage”. Dr M P George of the DPCC told the bench of Justices Badar Durrez...