-The Hindu Business Line/ NetworkIdeas.org The world has been preoccupied with the Covid-19 pandemic, and this has also affected policymakers everywhere. There is much more recognition today of the terrible effects of underfunding public health over decades and how this affects the resilience of economies and societies. Yet this official preoccupation with addressing the spread of infectious disease appears to have had an unanticipated negative effect: less policy attention to concerns...

-Livemint.com Growth in exports, easing inflation, and higher manufacturing activity have lifted India to the top half of Mint’s Emerging Markets Tracker for the first time in four months India climbed five spots to attain the third position among key emerging markets in January, the latest update to Mint’s emerging markets tracker shows. Rising exports, falling inflation, and greater manufacturing activity boosted India’s rank in January although it still remains a few...

School meals ensure nutrition for millions of vulnerable children across the world. Almost 370 million children worldwide are covered by school feeding programmes. While 100 million school children benefitted from the noon meal scheme in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Brazil (48 million), China (44 million), South Africa (9 million) and Nigeria (9 million) too run similar programmes for school children. However, an estimated 39 billion in-school...

-The Hindu The Uttarakhand government continues to ignore evidence that hydropower projects in the fragile region exacerbate disasters In 2018, while travelling through the villages near the India-China border in Niti Valley in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district, I stopped at Reni village, the birthplace of the iconic Chipko movement. The way to Reni was dotted with hydropower projects that were marred by controversy. The villagers complained about the rampant flouting of norms by...

-PTI/ The Hindu The 2019 study, spanning 40 years of satellite observations across India, China, Nepal and Bhutan, indicates that climate change is eating the Himalayas’ glaciers, the researchers said. As a part of the Nanda Devi glacier broke off in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district on Sunday, leading to massive floods, a study published in 2019 had warned that Himalayan glaciers have been melting twice as fast since the start of this century...