-Down to Earth   India needs second-generation reforms in environmental governance to protect environment and community rights and reduce transaction costs for industry After more than two years of flip-flops by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), the Supreme Court (SC) gave a deadline of April 30, this year to the ministry to start the process of setting up a national environmental regulator under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, with offices...

-The Times of India   PATIALA: Just days after the Lok Sabha election results, anger is palpable in rural Punjab against the ruling dispensation as farmers are not getting even half the power supply promised by the government. They are forced to spend on diesel to run pumpsets for drawing Water from tubewells to irrigate nurseries of paddy, transplanting of which would commence next month. Paddy is the biggest kharif crop of Punjab...

The latest WHO report entitled World Health Statistics 2014 delineates the performance made on the health front by India vis-à-vis other nations between 1990 and 2012. It also presents the challenges that the new government at the Centre should try to resolve. In India, life expectancy at birth (both sexes, in years) has increased from 58 in 1990 to 66 in 2012. While life expectancy at birth for men rose from 57...

-The Telegraph   Officials are set to propose to the Narendra Modi government that the UPA's blockbuster rural job scheme be restricted to select districts as the decision in 2008 to extend it to all districts was not required. The officials of the rural development ministry are expected to tell the new minister that the funds allocated for the implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNREGA) were not adequate for national...

-Live Mint The problem is unlikely to be solved by government action alone   With almost every second child stunted in the country, India is virtually a nutritional basket case. Despite making giant strides in reducing poverty and hunger over the past two decades, India has struggled to combat child under-nutrition. India's malnutrition burden arises from a long history of flawed policy choices and deep-rooted gender inequality, which the new government must address...