-The Hindu Business Line The Ayushman Bharat programme must aim to reverse poverty caused by healthcare expenses The state of India’s healthcare system is somewhat dichotomous — the country is a global supplier of life-saving, affordable and good quality generic medicines, yet lakhs of families are driven into poverty because they are forced to spend much of their earnings and savings on medications to treat chronic and life-threatening diseases. The poor, particularly,...

-The Hindu Demand for potable water will outstrip supply by 2030, says study The NITI Aayog on Thursday released the results of a study warning that India is facing its ‘worst’ water crisis in history and that demand for potable water will outstrip supply by 2030 if steps are not taken. Nearly 600 million Indians faced high to extreme water stress and about 2,00,000 people died every year due to inadequate access to...

-TheWire.in Veteran IAS officers agree there is a need for greater specialisation in the civil services, but are unhappy with the cut in recruitments over the years and the move to bypass the UPSC system. New Delhi: The Centre’s move to allow lateral entry into empanelled bureaucracy has opened up a complex debate that has been ongoing for, at least, the last two decades. While a big chunk of the civil servants...

-Hindustan Times Citizens are finding innovative ways to protest and are often doing so without the help of political parties, who often arrive ‘late to the party’. Though the recent violence in Shillong began over a minor scuffle and spread through a fabricated story on WhatsApp, it took almost a week to de-escalate tensions between members of the Sikh community, long-time settlers in the Punjabi Lane area of the city, and Khasis,...

-Livemint.com Soaring sales of herbicide tolerant, genetically modified cotton seeds put farmers across States at risk New Delhi: Regulatory failure has led to a surge in sales of unapproved herbicide tolerant (HT) genetically modified (GM) cotton seed packets in the ongoing Kharif planting season, putting thousands of farmers at risk across States such as Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. The regulatory failure has been precipitated by the fact that the genetic engineering...