-Live Mint The country is a happy hunting ground for communicable diseases In a Mint article last week, economist Dean Spears pointed out that the double whammy of high population density and unsanitary conditions in India stunts the growth of children, who bear a disproportionate burden of infectious diseases and lose their ability to absorb nutrients. Unless India ramps up its public health system, providing extra food will mean little for...

-The Economic Times The latest round of NSS - the 68th employment-unemployment round - brings good news for jobs. The data for 2011-12 shows that total employment in the economy has risen from 460.2 million in 2009-10 to 472.9 million in just two years. This is good news compared to the previous five-year period that saw an increase of only 2.5 million jobs over 2004-05 and 2009-10. Another piece of good news...

-The Hindu Much like the space it aims to protect, India's cyber security policy, launched this week, is characterised by a striking duality of purpose. On the one hand, it seeks to guard, and thus strengthen, the country's strategic assets and online intelligence infrastructure. On the other, it hopes to secure the transactions of citizens, companies and public services on the web. The latter, more enabling goal is intended to...

-The Hindu Extraordinarily, more than a dozen senior police officers in Gujarat are in jail or facing prosecution, in connection with cold-blooded murders dressed up as encounter deaths. Darshan Desai traces the hand of politics in the extrajudicial killings. At a recent function in the state capital, Gandhinagar, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi warned the Central Bureau of Investigation against becoming a tool in the hands of the Congress-led union government. He...

-The Economic Times MUMBAI: The Union Cabinet this week passed an ordinance to implement the National Food Security Bill (NFSB). The bill guarantees legal entitlement of food grains at a subsidised price to ~67 per cent of India's population. The ordinance will come into effect immediately once it is signed by the President. But it also needs to be approved by both the houses of Parliament in the monsoon session within six...