-Down to Earth While northeast states such as Manipur and Nagaland have shown a sharp deterioration in child sex ratio, the skewed ratio has improved marginally in Punjab and Haryana The steadily declining child sex ratio in India has reached emergency proportions and urgent action must be taken to alleviate this crisis, warned a latest United Nations (UN) study. The report, released on Tuesday, has attributed much of the declining numbers to...

-The Business Standard Because the ecology of various regions differs, it is silly to club them all under one countrywide average number A whopping three-fourth of the country's geographic area is right now facing a rainfall deficit severe enough to warrant crisis management. The Indian Meteorological Department's data shows that 74% of India has so far recorded monsoon rainfall much below its normal levels. Of the 36 rainfall divisions that the...

-The Indian Express Modi on July 5 made clear his intention to retain and push the schemes. In a decisive push to the UPA government's Aadhaar project and Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, his office has directed the Planning Commission to collect data on these schemes in 300 priority districts and submit a status report by August 15. According to government sources, the directive was issued...

-Outlook Over 20 per cent of food items served in restaurants and fast food outlets across the country have been found to be substandard or adulterated, according to government data. Out of 46,283 food samples including milk, milk products, edible vegetable oil and spices tested at various government laboratories during 2013-14, as many as 9,265 samples were found to be adulterated and misbranded. Uttar Pradesh reported the highest number of such cases in...

-Outlook India To the social subsidy whiners, please check corporate write-offs column The TV anchor asked eagerly of Arun Jaitley whether he would take hard decisions or, in the case of a bad drought, revert to loan waivers and (obviously wasteful) subsidies. The finance minister replied that it depended on the situation as it unfolded but he hoped he wouldn't have to return to such steps. "We hope so too," said...