KEY TRENDS   • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14    • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...

FEW rural pleasures match seeing a golden field of grain, rustling and ripe for reaping. But the harvest season in the northern hemisphere is being marked by turmoil on global wheat markets. A big reason is to be found in one of the world’s largest wheat exporters, Russia. Hit by fires and drought which have wiped out a third of the grain crop, the authorities there have banned exports, first temporarily...

A court in India's north-eastern state of Manipur has issued arrest warrants for nine policemen charged with killing an unarmed man. The men are accused of murdering Sanjit Meitei in "cold blood" in Imphal in July 2009. A pregnant woman also died. Manipur police said Mr Meitei opened fire before police shot back in self-defence. Four other people were injured in the shooting. Video footage and photos later emerged, pointing to an unprovoked...

Thousands of people have been evacuated from low-lying areas near the Yamuna river in the Indian capital, Delhi. The city is battling renewed flood fears as water levels in the Yamuna have crossed the danger mark. Incessant rainfall and release of water from the Hathnikund barrage upstream in Haryana state have raised the level of the river, officials say. In late August too, the river touched the danger mark after days of heavy...

Sitting on his father’s shoulders, two-year-old Rahul Kumar giggles and tugs on a lock of his father’s hair. A happy, healthy-looking boy, Rahul has already seen much of India. Born in a small village in northern Bihar, he has spent roughly half of his short life in Punjab, where his parents work as seasonal farm labourers. He has spent a few months in his parents’ village. The rest has been spent...