-The Hindu Every fourth girl married in rural Rajasthan and every fifth girl married in rural Bihar and Jharkhand is less than 18 years -- this despite several measures taken by the government to check child marriages in the country. Only 50 per cent deliveries are considered safe in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and just about 45 per cent children are fully immunised in Uttar Pradesh. The percentage of men getting married...

-The Times of India Groundwater, a precious natural resource, is for all practical purposes a private property in India. Anyone can bore and extract water from the land he owns with few rules to restrict over-exploitation. But all this could soon change. Plans are afoot to alter laws and regulations to make groundwater a common property resource to ensure better regulation by government as a public trustee with the involvement of communities...

-The Hindu Veteran socialist Mrinal Gore, known for her dauntless activism on the issues of price rise, water rights and women’s empowerment, passed away following cardiac arrest at Vasai, Thane district on Tuesday. She was 84. “For the past 10 days she was at my house,” said daughter Anjali Vartak. “She had suffered a bronchitis attack and was on ventilator. She was feeling weak. She had fever too. Today [on Tuesday] she was...

-The United Nations Higher demand for food due to population growth, urban migration and other factors will require countries to increase their productivity, according to a new report co-authored by the United Nations, which warns that without more supplies, prices will rise significantly. “Higher demand will be met increasingly by supplies that come to market at higher cost. With farmland area expected to expand only slightly in the coming decade, additional production...

ASHAs will continue to bear the burden of the government's rural health mission as a new order lists more incentive-based services. On May 31, a Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare order listed additional incentivised duties for accredited social health activists, or ASHAs, but was silent on the issue of regularisation of their employment. ASHAs, who bridge the gap between the rural population and the nearest health care outlets under...