-The Economic Times The government's plan to make the Aadhaar number the centrepiece of the cash-transfer system is now facing opposition from a new quarter: banks. Several banks, led by the State Bank of India, have expressed reservation against jettisoning their current systems in favour of the platform created by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which issues the Aadhaar number and wants to make it the basis to authenticate...

The recent Supreme Court judgment dismissing pharma giant Novartis’ claim for patent protections in India for its award-winning and prohibitively priced anti-leukemia drug Glivec has renewed the focus on accessibly-priced drugs – in particular the failure of the Indian public healthcare system and health policy to ensure affordable drugs for all. Studies show that as much as 70% of health spending in India comes from out-of-pocket payments, with 50-80% of...

-The Economic Times The BT cotton revolution, which swept India's countryside, is now doubling up as the source of the country's cheapest cooking oil. And in Narendra Modi's motherland, the Jasubens are loving it. Cottonseed or 'kapasiya' oil is ruling in the kitchens of Gujarat, the largest cotton-growing state. One out of every two bottles of oil consumed in Gujarat contains cottonseed oil. "Earlier, we used around three litres of cottonseed oil...

-Tehelka With 65 percent of the population below the age of 35, India boasts of an unparalleled generational dividend, but are we turning this potential into a disaster? Avalok Langer spots a ticking time bomb Nutrition & Health* 40% of children in India are malnourished 43% of children in the age group of 12-23 months receive full immunisation 48%+ of children are underweight 50%+ of all deaths under age 5 are related to malnutrition 45% of children...

The ongoing droughts and water crises in Maharashtra and Gujarat point to the multiple conflicts the beleaguered and scarce resource of water is likely to spark in the coming years. India is today the world’s largest consumer of groundwater, but it is clear that how we extract, harvest, distribute and manage our most precious resource cannot proceed along usual lines. The unsustainable over-extraction is heralding a fall in the water-table and...