-Economic and Political Weekly The relationship between depleting water levels and school dropout rates is poorly studied. As chronic water shortages begin to affect more regions of the country, this trend will begin to appear more forcefully. Kishore Jha (kishor.delhi6@gmail.com) is working on child rights with Terre des Homes, Germany. Devender, a 14-year-old boy from Kheeda village in Almora district in Uttarakhand State, studies in Class 8. He spends at least three hours...

-Down to Earth NSSO report shows half of India has no access to sanitation, drainage or waste disposal A national sample survey report, released on Thursday, reveals that a third of married couples in India do not have separate room to themselves, affecting their privacy and health. The 69th round of survey report of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) states that only 68 per cent rural households and 73 per cent of...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance The Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley said that Varishtha Pension Bima Yojana (VPBY) will benefit the vulnerable section of society with limited resources as it will provide monthly pension ranging from Rs 500/ to Rs 5,000/ per month to senior citizens of the country. The Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley was speaking after re-launching the Varishtha Pension Bima Yojana (VPBY) here today on...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's poorest and socially underprivileged people seem to have benefited the least from a set of government programmes launched over the past decade to reduce personal expenses on health care, research suggests. A team of health economists has found that the financial burden of health care on India's poorest 20 per cent, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims has outpaced that on the richest 20 per cent and...

-The Telegarph New Delhi: India has asked its citizens to defer non-essential travel to four West African nations struck by outbreaks of the Ebola virus and has alerted its health surveillance system to track travellers arriving from these countries for up to four weeks. Health minister Harsh Vardhan today said people should defer "non-essential travel" to Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria that have cumulatively reported 1,603 Ebola patients, including 887 deaths. The...