-The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement demonetising high denomination notes on November 8, 2016, will do little to address the prime objective of flushing out black money but will adversely affect the economy in the short term, especially the informal sector, which is predominant in India, says M. Govinda Rao, a Member of the Fourteenth Finance Commission and Emeritus Professor, National Institute of Public...

-PTI More BSF personnel have died of cardiac arrest and other illness than in action on the borders and anti-Naxal operations in the past two years, according to official data. The data revealed that only 25 of total 774 deaths in the period between January 2015 and September 2016 were battle casualties. It showed that while a total of 25 personnel were killed in action, 316 died due to a variety of...

-Frontline.in To rural India, which is already reeling under multiple crises, demonetisation has come as yet another blow. WHEN the Prime Minister made the decision to withdraw Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes, he did not quite factor in the impact it would have on agriculture. Despite the rhetoric the concept of digital wallets has not yet entered rural India unlike in much of the country’s urban areas, and much of rural and...

-Scroll.in Health activists say the government is using the report to divert attention from its failures. Ninety seven children have died in the district hospital of Malkangiri in southern Odisha since September. Based on the clinical symptoms of high fever and seizures, doctors suspected the children had died of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome, or brain inflammation, caused by the Japanese Encephalitis virus. Acute Encephalitis Syndrome is a group of conditions that affect the brain...

-The Indian Express The problem is particularly pronounced in Bardhaman district — known as the rice bowl of Bengal. Kolkata: West Bengal’s agriculture department has estimated that 35 per cent of the monsoon paddy might go waste if not harvested in time, an exercise that has been badly hit with farmers lacking the cash to pay for labour. The estimate is part of an agriculture department report, commissioned to assess the impact...