-The Indian Express All the extra money that you spent on installing CFL lights in your homes, in buying new LED television sets, and on five-star rated air-conditioners and refrigerators instead of three-star ones, have proved to be worthwhile, having resulted in huge energy savings for India in the last decade. Between 2000 and 2011, a total of 791 million tonnes of oil equivalent energy was saved, thanks to measures like...

-Down to Earth Infrastructure for primary healthcare has decreased in the past decade As India moves towards the Goal of universal health coverage (UHC), its inadequate health infrastructure is going to pose major problems. In the past few years, the percentage of shortfall in basic infrastructure has increased, instead of declining, says a report released Thursday. Despite massive spending under the National Rural Health Mission, the shortfall in sub-centres increased by...

-The Business Standard Make schemes mobile and portable, by focusing on people and not products India spends close to four per cent of its GDP on an alphabet soup of welfare schemes and subsidies - it has become a welfare state before becoming a developed state. Despite its significant costs, India's welfare system is neither comprehensive nor very effective - subject to huge leakages and corruption, and not well knit into...

-The Indian Express Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi Thursday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to release Rs 1,000 crore as immediate relief to flood-hit Assam, where at least 37 people have died so far. Earlier in the day, Gogoi had complained that the Centre's response to the Assam floods was not as prompt as it was in the case of Jammu & Kashmir. While asking for the Rs 1,000 as immediate aid,...

-Down to Earth The number should be reduced from the current 169 targets A development expert, Morten Jerven, has estimated that the world might end up spending close to $250 billion just to monitor UN development Goals for 2030. In a report, Jerven proposes that governments should cut down the number of targets from the current 169 to avoid over-spending. According to Reuters, world leaders will set new sustainable development objectives-such as improving...