-Down to Earth The BJP-led government's change of heart for big-ticket rural programmes says a lot about its dwindling political fortune India's current political season has a nostalgic tint. Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has apparently met party leaders to kickstart a campaign against the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA’S) overt efforts to softly kill the erstwhile government’s flagship programmes. Particularly, the NDA government’s political decisions to not pursue the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...

-The Times of India New Delhi: Worried that the recent gang-rape and suicide of an ASHA worker in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh can jeopardise its ambitious health plans, the Centre has asked states to take proactive measures to ensure security of healthcare workers. The health ministry has suggested states to set up a complaint committee or cell headed by a woman as per Vishaka guidelines in every healthcare facility. Besides, states have also...

-The Hindu Documents on PAC deployment were ‘weeded out’. Meerut (Uttar Pradesh): The Uttar Pradesh police destroyed documents that could have helped to prove the involvement of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel in the Hashimpura massacre of 1987, even while the trial is still pending, it has now emerged. Last year, a Delhi court acquitted 16 PAC men, who were among the 19 charged with abducting 42 members of the minority community...

-Economic and Political Weekly Health and nutrition indicators have improved, but remain unacceptably low. After a hiatus of a decade, we now have up-to-date information on the health and nutrition status of the population. Preliminary results for 13 states and two union territories of the much awaited National Family Health Survey–4 (NFHS–4) which was conducted in 2015–16—the first after NFHS–3 of 2005–06—have just been released. In a welcome development, NFHS–4, for the...

-The Hindu However, it is among the highest consumers of smokeless forms of tobacco The preliminary findings from National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) released last week have given anti-tobacco campaigners a reason to smile. The survey has found that across the board, people — both men and women — in India are smoking less than they were a decade ago. Not just tobacco, even alcohol consumption among Indians has fallen. According to the...