-The Hindu Chennai: Completely unprepared for disasters: the hospitals in Chennai — private as well as government — were particularly vulnerable, improvising solutions as the situation developed. As water levels rose, Chennai saw every single system associated with modern life abysmally fail —houses collapsed, roads caved in, communication networks went down, sewage pipelines were wrecked, and carcasses floated on roads. Patients in government and private hospitals across the city took a beating. Completely...

-Civil Society Online Bhubaneswar: Laxman Goud, a 35-year-old farmer in Thakurpalli village in Komna block of Nuapada district of Odisha, used to lead a very simple life. He was a devoted follower of Mahima Dharma, a subaltern religion practised by underprivileged castes in Odisha. One morning, he took his life in desperation. He couldn’t repay Rs 19,000 he had borrowed from a local moneylender at 36 per cent interest. Goud had invested...

-The Indian Express   India’s poor are closely bunched up near the poverty line. This could make poverty alleviation more manageable.    A recent World Bank (WB) report brought out poverty ratios across countries. According to these estimates, poverty in India in 2011-12 could be as low as 12.4 per cent if we use “modified mixed reference period” (MMRP), in which there are three recall periods depending on the nature of items. This...

-The Hindu Business Line Yes, but it may not wholly make up for the drought-stricken kharif season Agriculture commodity supplies are erratic in India. They are more so now, due to a second consecutive year of below-normal monsoon, which has resulted in big setbacks to the kharif crop. Edelweiss Agri Research recently took up a nation-wide crop survey to estimate the sowing intentions for the upcoming rabi season. This, along with the...

-Livemint.com In a paper released in ‘Lancet’, a team of researchers identified seven structural problems in India’s healthcare system Mumbai: Despite recording several gains in health in recent years, India continues to lag several health indicators such as mortality rates and malnutrition. The country carries a disproportionate burden of the world’s sick. Home to 17.5% of earth’s population, India accounts for 20% of the global burden of disease, 27% of all...