-PTI Ahmedabad: The state government today told the Gujarat High Court that there was a shortage of specialist doctors at community health centres as they were generally unwilling to work in rural areas and small towns. In an affidavit filed in response to a PIL seeking the courts direction to the state to provide better diagnosis and treatment facilities to control vector-borne diseases, the government said that it was fully equipped to...

-Hindustan Times Of the affected states are also those announced farm loan waivers just months ago to bail out beleaguered farming community. With the southwest monsoon season about to end in less than three weeks’ time, the government’s drought warning system predicts there could be a drought in 225 districts across “17 agriculturally important states of India,” putting further strain on distressed agriculture sector. According to the government’s National Agriculture and Drought...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The demand for work under the rural job scheme has risen this financial year, with economists and social activists attributing it to the economic slowdown and the spectre of a drought in south India. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme has already generated 119 crore persondays in the first five months of the financial year, data on the rural development ministry's website show. This is 55...

-Livemint.com Greater fiscal autonomy has not yet translated into higher spending on nutrition by states Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi once said, “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” Sadly, hunger and undernutrition continue to plague our country. India’s record in addressing undernutrition is abysmal. With a stunting rate of 38.4%, India accounts for about a third of the world’s stunted...

-The Times of India IMPHAL: It is hard to believe that the state, mostly in the news for reports of armed conflicts, has been achieving the country's lowest infant mortality rate (IMR) consecutively for the last three years — standing tall amidst other conventionally well-equipped states. According to the health ministry report, Manipur's IMR stands at nine deaths per 1000 live births. The national IMR, according to the latest available data,...