-The Telegraph New Delhi: A medical panel has produced India's first-ever rule book to tackle widespread vitamin D deficiency that prescribes regular, possibly lifelong, doses to even healthy adults but warns that doctors may be over-testing and over-prescribing the drug. An expert group set by the Endocrine Society of India, an association of specialists, has prescribed vitamin D to healthy adults, adolescents, infants and all pregnant women after 12 weeks of gestation...

-The New Indian Express CHENNAI: Five years ago, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had put an indefinite moratorium on the commercial cropping of Monsanto’s Bt Brinjal. However now, the Centre is considering commercial cultivation of a genetically modified hybrid variety of mustard. Following news reports on the move of the application for approval of GM Mustard to the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee in the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change...

-Hindustan Times Small and marginal farmers comprise 85% of the land holdings in India. Social protection is a survival tool for the rural poor, who have no easy access to wage labour. India recognised the need for social protection early on and introduced a slew of social protection programmes like the National Rural Livelihoods Mission. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) provides 100 days of assured labour wages...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Uncontrolled burning of paddy stubbles by Punjab farmers appears to be again putting the health of residents in the National Capital Region at risk, with Delhi's air quality falling sharply in the past two days even as farm fires peak in Punjab. Since Saturday, Delhi's air quality index has dramatically dropped by 60-80 points and is now inching towards the 'very poor' zone, when children are...

-The Hindu Forty years after being established with a mandate to generate data on the nutritional status of socially vulnerable groups, the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB) has been shut down by the Union Health Ministry. The bureau, under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), had been critical in informing the government’s poverty alleviation interventions with periodic assessments of nutrient deficiency among tribal communities, pregnant women, adolescents and “at-risk” elderly population...