-Down to Earth UN agencies urged governments to prioritise school reopening More than 39 billion in-school meals were missed globally during the novel coronavirus DISEase (COVID-19) pandemic due to school closures, according to a new UNICEF report. Since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly 370 million children have not been receiving a school meal in 150 countries, said the report by UNICEF Office of Research and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)...

-Down to Earth Increasing budgetary allocations towards Rural Employment Guarantee Act is non-negotiable   The agriculture sector has continued to serve as a lifeline at a time when the novel coronavirus DISEase (COVID-19) pandemic has hurt every economic activity in an unprecedented manner. It has not only ensured food supply but also provided livelihoods to daily-wage workers during the lockdown, providing the last resort for those rendered homeless. The Union Budget 2021-2022 to...

-Down to Earth With an estimated 85 million jobs to be lost to automation by 2025, the development divide is set to deepen One year into the novel coonavirus DISEase (COVID-19) pandemic, crowds returning to markets bring us a sense of normalcy returning to our lives. But there is an uncomfortable feeling that continues to hit us. From the neighbourhood grocery shop to the shopping malls, the thinning of the employed workforce is...

-The Hindu Physicians are confronted with a complex problem that involves multiple organ systems Medical students are taught to classify DISEases as either congenital or acquired. Acquired DISEases are infectious or inflammatory, nutritional or metabolic, vascular or neoplastic (tumours, benign or malignant). COVID-19 is acquired, infectious/inflammatory. The microbe is SARS-CoV-2. What are co-morbidities and why do they make COVID-19 severe and life-threatening? Chronic nutritional/metabolic DISEases start as diabetes, hypertension, metabolic syndrome or obesity....

-Down to Earth Bihar reported the highest prevalence of the DISEase   A higher proportion of children under the age of five in the villages had diarrhoea than their counterparts in the cities in 17 of the 22 Indian states and Union territories (UT) covered by the 2019-2020 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5). This urban-rural gap was significant in Maharastra — in the two weeks prior to the survey, 6.6 per cent children...