-TheWire.in ASHA workers and other community healthcare workers have experienced extra working hours, loss of pay and social apathy during the pandemic. Walking into 2021, if there was one positive to be identified with the large-scale outbreak of a pandemic in 2020 in India, and the rest of the developing world, it would have been this: a primary focus given by most governments and their executive agencies to improve healthcare services and...

-Newsclick.in The farmers’ unions also rejected the government’s proposal to take the matter to the Supreme Court saying that “this is a political matter and it will be resolved politically”. New Delhi: “We will either die or win. We will return home only when you withdraw the (three) laws,” farmer leaders told the government in clear terms on Friday afternoon (January 8) during eighth round of talks held at Vigyan Bhawan for...

-TheWire.in The police action follows a complaint lodged by a Bajrang Dal organiser from Bulandshahr, alleging that the seller was promoting communal disharmony. New Delhi: A Muslim shopkeeper in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr was detained by the police on Tuesday for selling shoes embossed with the word ‘Thakur’ on the sole with the authorities accusing him of inciting communal hatred. Thakur is a common Hindu name, normally associated with a so-called ‘upper’ caste. The shopkeeper,...

Commenting on the recently released fifth round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data for 17 states and five Union Territories (UTs) in an article published in The Indian Express (dated 6th January, 2021), Arvind Subramanian and his co-authors have stated that India has made progress on certain outcomes, including infant mortality rate (IMR), under-five mortality rate (U5MR) and neonatal mortality rate (NNMR). Relying on various rounds of NFHS data,...

-The Hindu The gender gap in the agriculture sector will only widen more with the current farm laws Eminent agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan once said, “Some historians believe that it was women who first domesticated crop plants and thereby initiated the art and science of farming. While men went out hunting in search of food, women started gathering seeds from the native flora and began cultivating those of interest from the point...