-The Hindu Efforts to make agriculture climate-resilient must be scaled up and consolidated The pervasiveness of climatic aberrations and the associated socio-economic vulnerability are now widely recognised and experienced across the globe. The Sixth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on “Global Warming at 1.5°C” distinctly propagates the need to strengthen and enhance existing coping capacity and to remain committed to the objectives of the Paris Agreement. The report...

-The Hindu For state-sponsored insurance, governments should avoid insurance companies World Bank data, in 2015, showed that nearly 65% of health-care expenditure in India is “Out of Pocket” (OoP). A report by the World Health Organisation has shown that around 3.2% of Indians would fall below the poverty line because of high OoP health expenditure. Thus, a national health insurance scheme like the Ayushman Bharat is welcome. While the principle of insuring a...

-The Telegraph In addition to problems like malnutrition, adivasi communities face newer burdens such as hypertension and heart ailments Pretending that a problem does not exist will not make it go away; it will only complicate the matter further. This is evident from the findings of a new report on tribal health, compiled by an expert committee set up by the Union government in 2013, that claims to be the first comprehensive...

-The Indian Express One-fourth of the urban population lives in these small towns (20,000 to 1,00,000 population). These 7 crore people need amenities to match up to their ‘urban’ status. Many of these towns may not be in the vicinity of big cities. Small towns in India are something of an oxymoron. They are far removed from cities in character and appearance and are constantly struggling to establish their “urbanness”. A...

-Factchecker.in Mumbai: In 254 religious identity-based hate crimes reported in India between January 1, 2009, and October 29, 2018, at least 91 persons were killed and 579 were injured, according to a new FactChecker.in database, released on October 30, 2018. About 90% (229) of these attacks were reported after May 2014, when the current Bharatiya Janata Party-led government assumed power nationally. The Citizen’s Religious Hate-Crime Watch (Hate Crime Watch, in short) records...