-Economic and Political Weekly The draft National Health Policy 2015 is an improvement over its predecessors--the policies of 1984 and 2002. However, it also reveals several gaps, inconsistencies and blind spots which tend to dilute otherwise constructive proposals. The purpose of this article is to open up the draft to further public debate and comment. Forum for Medical Ethics Society (fmesmumbai@gmail.com) is a voluntary, non-profit organisation registered in Mumbai. The society was...

-The Hindu Business Line Precision agriculture is the key, which relies on interactive mobile-based applications and timely feedback In an effort to tackle sluggish long-term agricultural growth in India, Prime Minister Modi is calling for a second Green Revolution. One in every two Indians relies on agriculture for livelihood, yet India still has the second highest number of undernourished people in the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that our government wants...

-The Indian Express We can add millions of hectares to irrigated land without building a single new dam. We just need to adopt a different method of managing the water already stored in them. One of the drivers of India’s irrigation sector has been the construction of large dams on our rivers, which Jawaharlal Nehru famously described as “the temples of modern India”. While these dams have helped increase India’s irrigated...

-Hindustan Times Several BJP-ruled states have brought rules and orders that could scuttle implementation of the forest rights act (FRA), reveal documents available with Hindustan Times.   The 2006 law upholds consent of villagers to divert forestland for industrial projects, considered a stumbling block to the Union government’s push for industries. The three forest-rich states of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, which are home to a sizeable tribal population, have come up with rules...

-Business Standard Why the public-private partnership model in education doesn't get a show of hands from its naysayers   Jaipur   July 8, 1 pm: Around 500 school teachers were protesting outside the building of Shiksha Sankul, which houses the various educational departments in the state. They burnt effigies of the education minister, demanding the Vasundhara Raje-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government withdraw the order on increased man-days. The teaching fraternity wanted the government to revisit...