-International Labour Organisation News The COVID-19 pandemic is having a catastrophic effect on working hours and earnings, globally. A new ILO report highlights some of the worst affected sectors and regions, and outlines policies to mitigate the crisis. GENEVA: The COVID-19 crisis  is expected to wipe out 6.7 per cent of working hours globally in the second quarter of 2020 – equivalent to 195 million full-time workers. Large reductions are foreseen in the...

-Down to Earth Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India and current programme director of the International Growth Centre’s India Programme, speaks to Kundan Pandey about how recent government policies have crippled the income of the poor and slowed the economy * Kundan Pandey: Is there low demand in the economy? Pronab Sen: The demand is not low. The crisis is that the demand is not growing. For a long time, people...

-Frontline.in Interview with Professor H.P.S. Sachdev, Member of the Technical Advisory Group, CNNS. The objective of the very first nationally conducted Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) was to collect nationally representative data on the nutritional status of preschool, school-going and adolescent children. The survey took on board many technical and medical experts to work on its design. One of them was Professor H.P.S. Sachdev, a Senior Consultant in Paediatrics and Clinical Epidemiology...

Almost one in every five suicides in the world is committed by self-poisoning with pesticide, which mostly occur in rural, agricultural areas of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), states a new publication entitled 'Preventing Suicide: A resource for pesticide registrars and regulators'. Published jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the booklet says that the adoption of green revolution technology...

-The Hindu Complaints being addressed: Minister. New Delhi: The government has received complaints of banks either not sanctioning or delaying disbursement to applicants of the Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS) under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban, Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister of State (independent charge) Hardeep Singh Puri admitted in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. Under the scheme, applicants of economically weaker section (EWS), low income group (LIG) and Middle Income Group...