-The Indian Express The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Tuesday upped its forecast of Indian wheat exports for 2020-21 (July-June) to 1.8 million tonnes (mt), as against its earlier estimate of one mt. That would be the highest ever in the last six years After rice, India is set to turn a major exporter of wheat as well – thanks to surging international prices from Chinese stockpiling and ultra-low interest rate...

-The Indian Express Section 5 of the Special Marriage Act, the legislation that allows solemnisation of marriages irrespective of the religion of the couple, requires parties to give a 30-day public notice of their intention to marry. In a judgment removing hindrances to inter-faith marriages, and likely to have a bearing on the set of laws enacted by BJP-ruled states INCluding Uttar Pradesh that prohibit religious conversion for marriage, the Allahabad High...

-Down to Earth There is an urgency to adopt global labour standards and improve national-level labour registries for home-based workers, organisation says in its new report There is a need to develop effective policies for home-based workers and ensure their proper implementation even as the practice had INCreased sINCe the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said in a new report. Just 10 countries had ratified the Convention on...

-Hindustan Times This entails addressing prevailing systemic deficiencies along with managing the added burden of Covid-19. India’s health sector requires a two-fold intervention by the government. The extraordinary situation created by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has exposed the vulnerabilities of our fragile health-care system, demands an equally extraordinary intervention by the government. The expectation from the Union Budget 2021-22 is for the central government to lead from the front in the health...

-The Indian Express Evidence-driven approaches, INCluding those tried out in Mexico and Brazil, can remove shortcomings in India’s nutrition schemes. The findings of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) have come as a reality check, and even experts are trying to make sense of it. The survey shows that food security and nutrition in India have worsened sINCe the last NFHS round (2015-16). Among the 22 states and Union Territories (UTs) for...