-TheWire.in * According to the Union health ministry’s new Rural Health Statistics report, for 2020-2021, primary health centres have a surplus of doctors. * This could be true – although there are doubts about whether the report included the number of doctors on transitory, ad hoc appointments as well. * The report fails to capture the qualitative aspects of doctors’ availability at PHCs, including a hidden problem motivated by the absence of sufficient...

-TheWire.in * The proposed Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill 2021 encourages a conducive environment for investments and to simplify the patent application process. * Farmers in India have historically been against any kind of IP rights – whether patents or plant variety protection over seed and planting materials. * In a confused mix of laws, the government also grants IP rights to BMCs for farmers’ varieties – formed under the Biological Diversity Act –...

-Newslaundry.com It also spent a total of Rs 490 crore on ads in 2021-22 alone. In 2020, the Delhi government announced with much fanfare a new strategy to tackle the issue of stubble burning – a bio-decomposer developed by the Indian Agriculture Research Institute (Pusa). Newslaundry had reported how a pilot project was launched in 2020, allegedly covering 1,900 acres of farmland across 39 villages. Last October, the government announced it would spray...

-TheWire.in Across India, unorganised workers registering for the e-Shram card have to wade through rumours of monetary benefits, fear of fraud, and a daunting process. On June 31, 2021, in response to a petition on the struggles faced by migrant workers during the pandemic, the Supreme Court directed the central government to accelerate the process of building a database of unorganised workers. The government responded by launching the e-Shram portal – a...

-Newsclick.in Production has dipped for the first time in the Modi era and procurement has plummeted, bringing wheat stocks down and affecting foodgrain-based schemes. The Narendra Modi-led Central government is going to be confronted with a crisis that it has never faced yet – shortage of wheat, one of India’s key staples. The worry about this looming cloud is aggravated by the fact that the Modi government has not been particularly successful...