-Down to Earth Most of the victims were targeted for “causing health issues or crop failure” Witch-hunts are still highly prevalent in 12 of Odisha’s 30 districts — especially Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Sundargarh, Malkangiri, Gajapati and Ganjam — a new report has claimed. Most victims of such superstitious practices were targeted for “causing health issues or crop failure”. Around 27 per cent cases were triggered by health issues in children, 43.5 per cent by...

-The Telegraph The index includes 5 pillars comprising 41 indicators on the basis of which the states have been ranked for literacy among children. * The Index is aimed at understanding the overall state of foundational learning across children aged below 10 years in India * Chief minister Mamata Banerjee congratulates all teachers, guardians and members of the education department West bengal has topped the ‘large states’ category in the Index on Foundational Literacy...

-The Telegraph In November, Bengal topped among all states by providing water supply connections to 2.40 lakh destinations in a month Bolpur( Birbhum): The Bengal government has set a target to supply piped water to around 5.77 lakh households in Bengal’s 10,729 remote rural hamlets facing water shortage within March next year. Sources said the state public health engineering (PHE) department recently held a statewide survey to identify remote hamlets located in forested...

-The Hindu Bengal doctor’s association writes to Mamata saying the order will only fatten wallets of insurance firms A prominent association of doctors in West bengal has written to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, asking her to revoke a recent order that makes it mandatory for patients to use the Swasthya Sathi card while seeking treatment in government-run hospitals. Swasthya Sathi is the Trinamool Congress Government’s insurance scheme providing a cover of ₹5 lakh...

After the release of the second phase data of the National Family Health Survey Fifth Round (NFHS-5), media commentators and experts have written that the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) for India has gone down just below the replacement-level fertility. The TFR for the entire nation was 2.2 in 2015-16, which decreased to 2.0 in 2019-21.   According to the United Nations, the replacement-level fertility is reached when the TFR of a...