-BBC At least 60 people died in a recent outbreak of viral encephalitis in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, a top health official has said. Doctors say patients come from seven affected districts in northern Bengal. The disease usually occurs during the Monsoon season across northern India and West Bengal is normally not among the worst-affected states. Encephalitis causes brain inflammation and can result in brain damage. Symptoms include headaches and fever. West...

-The Hindu The Centre has launched a major war against Japanese encephalitis which claims hundreds of young lives and causes high morbidity among children in several States across the country during Monsoon. Within weeks of taking over, Union Health and Family welfare Minister, Dr Harsh Vardhan said that his priority would be to ensure 100 per cent immunisation against the killer disease. Expressing extreme distress over the "runaway conquest of encephalitis," Dr Harsh...

-The Business Standard Of all the measures in the final Union Budget and Rail Budget for 2014-15, the micro-interventions that address food inflation by dismantling supply-side barriers are the most important. They carry added significance in a year when the Monsoon has been deficient in a wide swathe of the western and northern parts of the country. The promise to bring down the hold of wholesale warlords in the Agricultural Produce Marketing...

-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 Economic Times NEW DELHI: The Monsoon's late revival has increased sowing of crops by 35% in the past week, but worries about agriculture persist as reservoir levels are low, while planting is still much lower than last year, and only slightly better than it was at this time in the drought year of 2009. The situation in water reservoirs was also worrisome as they were filled up to only 26%...