Poisonous snakebites have killed more than a million Indians in the last two decades, finds a recently published article entitled Trends in snakebite mortality in India from 2000 to 2019 in a nationally representative mortality study. Published in the open access journal elifesciences.org, the research-based study has found that the country accounts for nearly half the total number of annual deaths in the world caused by snakebite envenoming. Who are the...

-Down to Earth The pesticides in question continue to be used in India, but are already banned, restricted or withdrawn in other countries Several experts underscored the ill effects of using chemicals excessively in agriculture and stressed on ecologically sound alternatives while backing a recent government draft order to prohibit a bunch of pesticides. Civil society members, citing risks, threats and damage from 27 pesticides, came out in support of a May 14,...

-World Health Organisation Newsroom India is among the countries most dramatically affected by snakebite and accounts for almost half the total number of annual deaths in the world. Authors of the article entitled ‘Trends in snakebite mortality in India from 2000 to 2019 in a nationally representative mortality study’ analysed 2,833 snakebite deaths from 611,483 verbal autopsies from an earlier study and conducted a systematic literature review from 2000-2019 covering 87,590...

Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...

-NetworkIdeas.org In the wake of the India-China conflagration at the border, the worst in more than five decades, the fault lines of India’s economic relationship with its northern neighbour are now wide open. Amidst the demands for boycotting Chinese products and investments, the Government of India finds itself in a bind, given the sheer dependence of the Indian economy on China. This dependence did not happen in a hurry; it took China...