-Livemint.com Let’s not discredit the findings of statistical surveys that are conducted among real respondents The uncomfortable truth that emerged from the leaked report of the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) is that rural poverty increased substantially between 2011-12 and 2017-18 for the first time in five decades. That this happened during a period of claimed high growth should have led to more research on what went wrong. Instead, there have been attempts...

-Financial Express An overwhelming number of Indians have claimed that they don’t have access to toilets, poking holes in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertion of India having become open-defecation free under Swachh Bharat. But the NSO, which conducted the survey, also said that the respondents could not be fully trusted, and that they may have lied to underreport the access to toilets. About 30% of rural households lacked access to toilets...

-Business Standard Around 71.3 per cent of rural households and 96.2 per cent of urban households had access to toilets during 2018, according to the survey More than one-fourth of households in villages have no access to toilets, according to the latest official survey conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO). Around 71.3 per cent of rural households and 96.2 per cent of urban households had access to toilets during 2018, according to...

-India Water Portal Excessive and unregulated pesticide use has not only poisoned the soil, water and environment in villages in Punjab’s Malwa region – it has also increased health risks for the people Punjab, riding high on pesticides Pesticide use continues to be very high in agriculture in India, where estimated annual production losses due to pests amount to approximately US$ 42.66 million per year. Pesticides are chemical compounds that kill pests such...

  Air quality in North India in general and Delhi National Capital Region (Delhi NCR) in particular plunged to its lowest point in recent years during October-November thanks to a variety of factors. Through media reports one comes to know that stubble burning (also called paddy straw burning/ crop residue burning) is chiefly responsible for the public health crisis in India's capital and its nearby regions. Data accessed from the website...