-The Indian Express Curbing stubble burning is about inducing behavioural changes in farmers. Given that crop residue burning has an environmental footprint and poses Health hazards, one needs to be cautious while evaluating the Centre’s policy to mitigate the crisis. But there is also an urgent need for such an evaluation. The Centre has allocated Rs 1,050 crore to the states where crop residue burning poses a pollution hazard. The Union Ministry...

-Livemint.com A recent large-scale survey on sanitation in India raises more questions than it answers Bengaluru: India has built more toilets over the past two years than it did in the previous five years, if the latest official sanitation survey is to be believed. The National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS) conducted between November 2017 and March 2018 shows that 75% of rural households in the country have access to toilets, a...

-The Economic Times New Delhi: The government is planning to rope in domain experts from within and outside the country to ensure a smooth rollout and monitoring of ‘Ayushman Bharat’, its ambitious Health insurance scheme for the poor. Niti Aayog, the government’s premier think tank, will come out with guidelines for setting up the project monitoring unit (PMU) for Ayushman Bharat, also known as National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS), an official told...

-News18.com Gandhi made the news recently by opposing her own ministry into wanting to convert these to factory made packets instead of sourcing local food items and ingredients. Citing food safety she has pushed for a powdered formula that can be mixed with regular meals. New Delhi: Over a 100 activists and groups have written to Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi opposing the move to turn take home...

-The Hindu It has sharply lifted tax buoyancy and ushered many new return filers into the income tax net The argument about whether demonetisation was good or bad for the economy refuses to die down even a year after the event. Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan took potshots at it in a recent speech. While one can endlessly debate, with very little data, on whether the ban on high-value currency notes dealt a...