-The Tribune Need to readjust premium to favour farmers Insurance firms, both in the public and private sectors, have reportedly made a killing by offering crop insurance to farmers in about two dozen states. The Tribune reported abnormal gains by a dozen insurance firms through the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY). Insurers reportedly received a gross premium of Rs 22,362 crore under the scheme in 2016-17 and saved huge sums even...

-Hindustan Times There’s no shortage of talent. For over two decades, women have occupied 33% of seats in panchayats and done so well that states like Bihar bumped up their quota to 50%. Exactly 101 years after the 19th Amendment granted American women suffrage, a record 116 women, including the first Muslim, the first Native American and the youngest ever, were voted to the US Congress. India, too, has the highest number...

-The Telegraph Corruption and traditional attitudes are major reasons why 196 million Indians are chronically undernourished One is what one eats. A study by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization confirms that poor-quality diet poses a greater threat to public health across the world than malaria, tuberculosis or MEAsles and that diet-related factors account for six of the top nine ailments on the global burden of disease. This is worrying for...

-The Telegraph Public health experts said the situation reflected India’s poor budget allocation for health programmes An impending price rise that is likely to raise India’s budget for a key vaccine by less than Rs 100 crore has prompted the government to seek an international donor’s help at a time it has built a showpiece statue for an estimated Rs 3,000 crore. Public health experts said the situation reflected India’s poor budget allocation...

-Newsclick.in Of the 136 talukas in Maharashtra, which had demanded that they should be declared ‘drought-hit’, only three were “eligible” to be there in the category, as per 2016 manual. Though the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had declared a month ago that as many as 255 districts of the country have witnessed deficit rainfall of 20 to 59 per cent during the South-West monsoon, many of the states are yet to declare...