-Business Standard There was a significant rise in number of bank accounts held by Indians last year but a large chunk of these saw no transaction, shows a World Bank report Amid data suggesting nearly every Indian household now has access to a bank account, thanks to a renewed push to financial inclusion under the government’s Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, a set of numbers from the World Bank Global Findex for...

-The Indian Express Delhi’s slums house people whose work makes the lives of its better-off citizens easier but they themselves offer the worst of living conditions. Lakhs of people are denied the basic need for a toilet, breeding indignity and infections. The city’ urban shelter agency DUSIB’s report on how to make the city slum-free is a challenge for any government, especially one elected on a pro-poor agenda. The Indian Express...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Nearly 40% of deaths registered among girls (0 to 6 years) in the city between 2010 and 2014 have been due to lack of proper nutrition, revealed a central government report. The corresponding figure for Thane district was 64%. The findings stated that the Maharashtra government spent Rs 4,500 crore on improving child health in the last five years. In Mumbai and Thane, the percentages of moderately and...

-Economic and Political Weekly Direct benefi t transfers in the form of cash cannot replace the supply of food through the public distribution system. Though it is claimed otherwise, DBT does not address the problems of identifying the poor ("targeting") and DBT in place of the PDS will expose the vulnerable to additional price fluctuation. Further, if the PDS is dismantled, there will also be no need or incentive for procurement...

-The Telegraph   Tribal ministry to cover 6 lakh children of indigenous communities in Assam     Guwahati: The Union tribal affairs ministry, with the help of the health department, is planning to cover at least six lakh tribal children in Assam, including those of tea garden workers, under its sickle-cell anaemia screening programme this year. Sickle-cell anaemia is a blood disorder characterised by an abnormality in haemoglobin that carries oxygen from the lungs to...