-Livemint.com Spoilage and pilferage are not something the country can afford given its low ranking in the hunger index The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently approved a proposal to restructure around Rs30,000 crore of food credit given to Punjab state agencies, allowing for the conversion of cash credit into a 20-year loan at a lower interest rate. The central bank also sanctioned a cash credit limit of Rs26,000 crore for this...

-The Hindu The Global TB Report 2016, recently released, has revised the estimates for the tuberculosis (TB) burden in India upwards. The country has 27 per cent of the global burden of incident tuberculosis and 34 per cent of global TB deaths. For the year 2015, the updated estimate of incidence (new and relapse TB cases per year) is 2.8 million cases. India diagnosed and notified 1.7 million incident TB patients...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Those selling bottled water and cold drinks at more than their maximum retail price, including at airports, restaurants and multiplexes, could attract penalty and jail terms, consumer affairs minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Friday. Citing the common experience of consumers, the minister said packaged drinking water is often found selling at 10-20% higheR Rates at such locations and there are also cases where some of...

-The Hindu The overcrowding of prisons in the country is a long-standing problem that is seldom addressed effectively. Even though the Supreme Court has, from time to time, raised the issue of prison reforms in general, and that of overcrowding in particular, measures to decongest jails have been sporadic and half-hearted. The issue is once again in the news, with the Supreme Court bemoaning that prisons in Delhi and nine States...

-Livemint.com Uttar Pradesh fared better under BSP rule than SP regime in economic activities In an attack against Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, on Monday said that if the people of the state vote for development, they would elect the Samajwadi Party (SP) government again as it has outpaced the previous government on the development front. A quick analysis of some of the development indicators in...