-The Hindu Reviving the official household spending survey is only a first step India’s official statistical machinery is gearing up to relaunch the All-India Household Consumer Expenditure Survey, traditionally undertaken quinquennially, from July 2022. If it fructifies, the result may be known towards the latter half of 2024, provided the Government permits the release. The last such Survey (2017-18), did not get such a sanction — its results reportedly indicated the first...

-Centre for Science and Environment It is becoming clearer by the day that chemical fertilizers are not a sustainable solution to the problem of depletion of soil nutrients as a result of agriculture, particularly crop production. Biofertilizers and organic fertilizers not only provide nutrients to crops, they also help in restoring soil health and ecological balance. As we (re)discover the power and potential of biofertilizers and organic fertilizers, we need to...

-Livemint.com Poverty reduction was higher in rural areas compared to urban India as rural poverty declined from 26.3% in 2011 to 11.6% in 2019, while in urban areas the decline was from 14.2% to 6.3% during the corresponding period, as per report Spelling some relief for the country's prosperity, India's extreme poverty declined 12.3 percentage points lower in 2019 than in 2011 as poverty headcount rate has dropped from 22.5% in 2011...

-The Hindu Improving natural iron absorption from iron-rich grains is a better strategy than chemical iron fortification of cereals Is iron deficiency universal and profound in India? Is it due to dietary iron deficiency? With the Indian vegetarian diet, containing 8.5 mg iron/1,000 Kcal-energy, women who eat adequately (enough energy for a sedentary lifestyle), should have an iron intake of about 15 mg/day, matching their daily iron requirement (15 mg/day). Adult men...

-The Hindu Without addressing undernutrition, the goals of reducing the incidence of TB, and mortality, in India, cannot be reached In the past, there was a belief that every ill had a pill and the pill killed the germs that made you ill. That germ could be a bacteria, virus or a parasite. Factors such as genetic and metabolic causes, hormonal imbalance and altered neuro-chemical transmitters causing illnesses were less known then....