-Livemint.com The government will have to ensure its spending improves economy-wide productivity, and its own revenue-generating capacity, to avoid a stagflationary trap After dithering on a fiscal stimulus package for nearly a year, India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has declared that she will not allow the fiscal deficit number to worry her too much as she pushes spending to revive growth in the upcoming budget. The government hopes that growth will generate higher...

-The New Indian Express Budget 2021-22: Rising poverty, falling health parameters, worsening educational outcomes, inadequate housing and widespread unemployment are the biggest challenges facing the Indian economy. MYSURU: From a distance, a house at Harthale, Nanjangud, looks like any other in the locality. But you step inside, and you will find recycled wooden windows and doors procured from demolished buildings, broken ceramics for surface, mud concrete blocks made out of building Waste,...

-IndiaSpend.com Many health issues were neglected as COVID-19 hogged global attention in 2020. Apart from the COVID-19 vaccine, what other health issues should be in focus in 2021? New Delhi: COVID-19 demanded the single-minded focus of India's entire healthcare infrastructure all through 2020. In fact, the pandemic hogged so much attention across all aspects of our lives that most other issues of public health were put on the back-burner. Issues such as tackling...

-The Hindu Reducing the burden of child undernutrition needs a policy goal — providing affordable access to quality food items The provisional verdict from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS 2019-20 factsheets on the burden of child undernutrition is not encouraging, with few exceptions. For the most part, this assessment has relied on the measure of a child’s anthropometry, i.e., children are defined as stunted, underweight or Wasted...

-Livemint.com * The neonatal mortality rate (NMR) slipped in 15 states and UTs in comparison to NFHS-4 (2015-16) * The survey also found considerable improvement in vaccination coverage among children age 12-23 months across all states/UTs The Under 5 and infant mortality rate (IMR) has come down in 18 states and union territories but in parallel 16 states recorded an increase in underweight and severely Wasted under 5 children among 22 states that...