-The Hindu Situation is the most bleak in low-income countries, says Lancet report “Oral diseases present a major global public health burden, affecting 3.5 billion people worldwide, yet oral health has been largely ignored by the global health community,” noted a new Lancet Series on Oral Health. The report warns that with a treat-over-prevent model, modern dentistry has failed to combat the global challenge of oral diseases, giving rise to calls for the...

-The Hindu Local firms will be at a disadvantage if big tech companies are given plum roles Since early last year, WhatsApp has busily piloted its payment system in India. WhatsApp Pay relies on the Indian government’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system to facilitate inter-bank transactions. Regulatory approval that would allow its nation-wide introduction is stuck on one point: the Indian government has asked WhatsApp to localise all data processing related to...

-National Herald Agriculture, food and trade policy expert Devinder Sharma writes: “My understanding is that only agriculture can reboot the economy, sustain millions of livelihoods, and reduce global warming.” At a time when Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz says that neo-liberalism is ‘dead and buried’, and the world as a result is increasingly grappling with the gigantic problems of rising unemployment, gnawing inequality and climatic change reaching a tripping point, agriculture alone has...

-Newsclick.in “Our population today is around 136 crore. Where will you get food grains for them through zero budget farming? This is sheer madness.” There is an inherent seductive charm to the term zero budget natural farming, for it makes the arduous occupation of agriculture appear beguilingly simple, an economic proposition without any risk or even requirement of capital. Coined by the Vidarbha-based farmer, Subhash Palekar, who was bestowed with the Padma...

  Adolescence is a period when physical and neuro-maturational changes take place in the body of a young girl. Although it is illegal marrying a girl under the age of 18 years as per the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006, adolescent girls in our country are compelled to marry and attain pregnancy that adversely affects well-being and outcomes of both mothers and their children. Latest available data shows that societal norms...