-The Hindu The focus is on preparing residents of 1,517 habitations to take the test by 2020 KALPETTA (Kerala): After making two successful forays into the tribal hamlets of Wayanad, Kerala’s State Literacy Mission (SLM) is all set to earn the ‘100% literate’ badge for the outlier region, which has the highest tribal population among all districts. Tribal pockets are among a handful of areas where full literacy remains elusive in the...

-The Hindu ‘Today’s 4.5% is impressive as size of the economy now is five times of 1980 levels’ New Delhi: India may have to revise downwards what is considered its “potential” rate of growth from 7-8% to bring expectations more in line with reality, former Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Arvind Subramanian has argued in a paper. This paper comes as a follow-up to the one Mr. Subramanian published last month, in which he...

-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...

-Business Standard Food supply chains will get disrupted globally, the study warns. Report to be officially released in August “The rate and geographic extent of global land and freshwater resources over recent decades is unprecedented in human history,” a report authored by UN’s panel of scientists from across the world on climate change is set to inform. Business Standard reviewed a leaked copy of the draft report sent to the governments of...

-The Hindu The lives of tea-estate workers in West Bengal have worsened in many aspects over the years The tea plantation sector continues to play a significant role in the economy of north Bengal. There are 276 organised tea estates spread over the three tea-growing regions of West Bengal: Darjeeling Hills, Terai and Dooars. Besides the formally registered large tea plantations, there are thousands of small growers. According to one estimate, the...