-The Times of India When Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi asked students of Bengaluru's Mount Carmel if the Modi government's Swachh Bharat Mission was working, he got a mixed response. An analysis of the campaign, well over a year now, shows the progress report is mixed too. Last year, on October 2, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the ambitious Swachh Bharat Mission, promising to provide toilets to Indian households that still...
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Freak weather whipped up a perfect storm -Rukmini S & B Aravind Kumar
-The Hindu 2015’s El Niño on course to being the strongest ever. The highest daily rainfall in a century. Freak weather conditions on one day. The hottest-ever Indian Ocean. The strongest-ever El Niño. The hottest year on record. The bad news is that a perfect storm of meteorological conditions combined to create Chennai’s worst-ever deluge last week, exacerbated in no small part by civic infrastructure pushed to its limit and systemic dysfunction. The...
More »Odisha drought situation gloomy, says central team
-IANS Bhubaneswar: After its two-day review of the drought situation in Odisha, a central team on Saturday admitted that the situation in the state is gloomy with over 80 percent crop loss in many areas. "Extensive damage of crops, especially paddy, has taken place in many areas. We have seen that while there was no sowing in some areas, some places have no grain. The farmers need compensation to sustain their livelihood,"...
More »Why Chennai went down and under -Radhika Merwin
-The Hindu Business Line A CAG audit shows that the Centre and State governments have been criminally remiss over disaster management The unprecedented and continuing rains that have broken a 100-year record and have wreaked havoc in Chennai for over a week, highlight both elaborate rescue and relief efforts as well as gaps in the existing policy on disaster planning. It is true that swift deployment of the armed forces to evacuate...
More »Is India actually free of polio? -Vidya Krishnan
-The Hindu Why New Delhi must not bask in the WHO’s polio-free certification and, instead, have an ambitious plan to eradicate polio-like flaccid paralysis. On November 30, the day India introduced an Injectable Polio Vaccine (IPV) in its routine immunisation programme, stating that it “will be an important step in the Polio Endgame Strategy”, a case of Vaccine Derived Polio Virus (VDPV) was reported from New Delhi. This was the second such...
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