-The Hindu Health protection scheme for 10.74 crore beneficiary families and 50 crore Indian citizens The healthcare sector has welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement in his Independence Day address that the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyaan, also known as Ayushman Bharat or the National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM), will be launched on September 25. The government-sponsored health insurance scheme will provide free coverage of up to ?5 lakh a family a year...

-The Hindu Court rejects road rage theory of U.P. police. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday did not buy the Uttar Pradesh Police’s version that the Hapur lynching of two men by cow vigilantes, leading to the death of one of them, was a “road rage” incident which turned fatal. Instead, a Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, ordered the Inspector General of Police, Meerut division, to conduct a...

-TheStatesman.com Vijay Jardhari, who started the ‘Beej Bachao Andolan’ Uttarakhand in 1986 along with fellow farmers, has dedicated his life to conserving traditional seeds, which otherwise would have disappeared due to wide acceptability of hybrid seeds among farmers Dehradun: Flashback 1986: Whenever farmer and social activist Vijay Jardhari and his friends would visit any village telling locals to conserve their traditional seeds and to continue consuming millets, people would make fun of...

-Livemint.com Rural development secretary Amarjeet Sinha on how MGNREGS has evolved since 2006 to result in income, acreage, water tables, productivity and fodder availability Agrarian distress and rural distress are terms used interchangeably, but the rural economy today is very different from what it was many years ago, given the diversification of rural incomes and hence incorrect to think one MEAns the other, says Amarjeet Sinha, secretary, ministry of rural development. In...

-IndiaSpend New Delhi: On July 27, 2018, Rajendra Birhor, a 40-year-old Adivasi, starved to death in Ramgarh, a district in eastern Jharkhand. He belonged to a “particularly vulnerable tribal group” (PVTG) and should have had access to at least two welfare MEAsures that could have saved his life: A pension and a ration card. Like him, 13 others died of starvation in Jharkhand over the last 10 months, according to the latest...