The Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation (MoWR, RD & GR) in its latest report has identified arsenic hotspots across the country, most notably in the states of Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Please consult chart-3 to get an idea about the geographical spread of arsenic hotspots in India. On the basis of arsenic concentration in the range 0.01-0.05 mg per litre...

-PTI Several Union Ministers, including Vijay Goel, Prakash Javadekar, Nirmala Sitaraman and Sushma Swaraj, have not cleared dues on their official bungalows till February, the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry said. Replying to an RTI query, the Ministry said Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Union Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region Jitendra Singh also have outstanding payments on their bungalows. These dues concern furniture and other things...

-The Times of India BENGALURU: Insurance regulator IRDAI on Friday came out with new rules that will have widespread ramifications for health insurers and the general public. Insurers henceforth cannot decline coverage to those who have used opioids or anti-depressants. Nor can they exclude those with a history of clinical depression, personality disorders, sociopathy, psychopathy, or neurodegenerative disorders. They cannot exclude kids suffering from Development disorders such as Down’s syndrome, cerebral...

-The Hindu No major country has managed to reduce poverty or sustain economic growth without a robust manufacturing sector The contribution of manufacturing to GDP in 2017 was only about 16%, a stagnation since the economic reforms began in 1991. The contrast with the major Asian economies is significant. For example, Malaysia roughly tripled its share of manufacturing in GDP to 24%, while Thailand’s share increased from 13% to 33% (1960-2014). In...

-The Hindu India is trying to rally the support of other developing countries in the World Trade Organisation to reform the “biased” system of assessing a country’s services trade policies, according to an official closely associated with the Development. The existing system, developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), has significant quantitative and qualitative flaws, said Manoj Pant, Director of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, and author of...