Down to Earth Nirasiya Bai’s three sons are used to their mother fainting every other week. Small pieces of shakkar (brown sugar) are now kept handy and placed swiftly under her tongue every time she is on the verge of collapsing. In March alone, three such incidents have occurred. The 52-year-old resident of Shivtarai village in Chattisgarh’s Bilaspur district is a diabetes patient. Nearly every other family in the village houses...

Milk prices are expected to remain high this summer due to tight demand-supply balance and high input costs, said Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das at the first bi-monthly monetary policy of 2023 on Thursday. “Milk prices could remain firm due to high input costs and seasonal factors,” said Das. The RBI’s observation comes a day after reports stated that the government was mulling import of dairy products this...

Urgent action needed to curb deadly air pollution in South Asia A new report by the World Bank states that Nine out of the world’s 10 cities with the worst air pollution are in South Asia. Ambient air pollution is a public health crisis for South Asia, not only imposing high economic costs but also causing an estimated 2 million premature deaths each year. The health impacts of air pollution range...

Editorial team, Carbon Copy  Ongoing shifts in rainfall and temperature caused by climate change are likely to increase the debt burden faced by rural households, particularly of marginalised groups in dry areas, an editorial in Carbon Copy magazine said. The piece cited a study in the journal Climate Change that argues that changes in climate, along with existing socio-economic differences - caste and landholding in particular — will deepen the size...

-The Telegraph Alertness among public and preparedness by healthcare institutions is always good, says Organised Medicine Academic Guild’s secretary-general New Delhi: A body of medics has called on fellow doctors and government agencies to acknowledge India’s largely safe status against existing coronavirus variants and avoid “scaremongering” lest the public disregard caution if and when a “real wolf” arrives. The Organised Medicine Academic Guild (Omag), a body of 15 professional medical associations with a...