-The Indian Express Extended dry spell hits rabi plantings on top of failed kharif crop Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh, an agricultural success story of the past decade, is bracing itself for a rough time this year, with deficient rains resulting in the failure of the kharif crop and also putting a question market over sowing in the ongoing rabi season. The state, in recent times, had emerged as the country’s second largest contributor of...

-The Hindu India has the highest number of pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths among children globally, reports the International Vaccine Access Centre (IVAC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The 2015 annual report of the IVAC reads like a repeat of last year’s report card, despite the progress the country is making to accelerate immunisation. With 2,97,114 deaths, India is once again at the top of the list of countries with...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Over 200 cancer drugs, 186 medicines to treat cardiovascular DISEases and 148 stents and cardiac implants will now be available at central government hospitals at prices 50-60% lower than the open market. The health ministry has launched a programme called AMRIT (Affordable Medicines and Reliable Implants for Treatment), under which the government will run pharmacy retail stores to sell medicines in hospitals like All India Institute...

-IPSNews.net DHARNI (Maharashtra): In the semi-darkness of her hut in Berdaballa, a forest village 610 km northeast of Mumbai, 28-year old Babita Mavaskar sat with her newborn baby boy watching him checked by a paramedic in an important antenatal exam. After about 20 minutes the health worker emerged from the shelter and made a big announcement, “All is well. Everything, the weight, temperature and height … is normal.” The small crowd of...

-DNA The failure of Bt Cotton to ward off pests has pushed farmers to penury The whitefly attack that has devastated the cotton crop in parts of Punjab and Haryana and caused heavy losses to farmers was a disaster that was waiting to happen. Estimates say that some 8 lakh hectare of standing cotton has been destroyed causing damage worth crores of rupees, which has hit farmers hard. This disaster was waiting...