-The Pioneer The Modi Government’s campaign to end open defecation is welcome but building new toilets alone will not solve the problem Politically, sanitation is a hot topic but the focus has to shift to the villages. Open defecation is still a common practice in many villages. The plan is to achieve the Clean India target by 2019 to coincide with the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Every year, health payments...

-The Hindu Business Line Farmers’ incomes are too inadequate for actuarial premium rates to work for them The farm crisis in India continues unabated, proving all the governmental nostrums ineffective. Unfortunately, the new crop insurance scheme — the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) — recently cleared by the Union Cabinet, to be implemented from the kharif crop cycle beginning this June, too, is unlikely to bring in any significant relief to...

-Livemint.com Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana will kick in from April, before planting for the next rain-fed kharif crop begins The government wants to cover 50% of all farmers under a new and revamped crop insurance policy that seeks to shield farmers from weather-related risks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday. The new scheme, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), was approved by the cabinet on 13 January to address rural...

-Down to Earth The BJP-led government's change of heart for big-ticket rural programmes says a lot about its dwindling political fortune India's current political season has a nostalgic tint. Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has apparently met party leaders to kickstart a campaign against the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA’S) overt efforts to softly kill the erstwhile government’s flagship programmes. Particularly, the NDA government’s political decisions to not pursue the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural...

-The Hindu The Health Ministry’s plan for a malaria-free India by 2030 is laudable, but grand pronouncements are meaningless as long as manipulated data distort our knowledge and bad governance impedes genuine attempts to fight the disease This month, the Health Ministry will unveil an ambitious new plan to eliminate malaria from the country by 2030. A malaria-free India certainly sounds like a dream, or maybe an early campaign promise: the disease...