-Newsclick.in Data confirms an acute demand crisis in rural India and beyond. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s latest statement on millennials contributing to the auto industry slowdown by shifting their preferences—choosing Ola or Uber ride-booking services instead of buying cars—is feeding many a meme on social media. Even before her statement, sections of industry and the banking sector had been pushing this argument. Not just private banking giants, such as Uday Kotak, but even...

-The Hindu Women unwilling to consume iron-folic acid tablets could opt for alternative. GUWAHATI: A drive for good nutrition among pregnant women and children in a southern Assam district has been given a gooseberry candy twist. This follows a report that the targeted groups find the prescribed iron-folic acid tablets repulsive. According to the 2015 National Family Health Survey, 47.2% of the women of reproductive age in Hailakandi were anaemic. The district, thus,...

-The Hindu The launch of the Jan Soochna Portal in Rajasthan is a vital cog in access to the right to information The Jan Soochna Portal (JSP) launched by the government of Rajasthan yesterday is a remarkable achievement in furtherance of the right to information (RTI) — especially Section 4 of the RTI Act — that deals with proactive disclosure of information. Transparency must be accompanied by accountability, and that is where...

-The Hindu The world sits up and takes notice when surplus food feeds the hungry, instead of ending up in the bin, say volunteers of No Food Waste How often do we think of surplus food that has gone untouched at a wedding banquet, restaurant or office canteen. What happens to the leftovers? Coimbatore resident G Padmanabhan and his friends Sudhakar Mohan and N Balaji began No Food Waste (NFW) in 2014 with...

-Down to Earth Up to 168,000 people kill themselves by ingesting pesticides annually, it said Pesticide accounted for as many as one in every five suicides across the world, a recent World Health Organization (WHO) report on suicide prevention has said. The report titled Preventing Suicide has been published in the form of a resource for pesticide registrars and regulators to educate them on how to prevent suicides due to pesticide consumption. The report...