-The Times of India There is good news and bad news on one of the key problems that haunts India - survival of the girl child. Sex ratio at birth, that is, the number of girls born for every 1000 boys born, has inched up from 906 to 909 between 2007 and 2013. This suggests that female feticide, the monstrous practice of killing off the girl baby in the mothers' womb...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government may introduce a health cess to fund free health care services and launch seven preventive campaigns to curb illnesses under a draft health policy unveiled today. Some analysts, however, said the draft of the National Health Policy 2015 lacked emphasis on regulating India's private health industry, necessary to curb the high cost of health care. The draft says the government has the "political will" to...

-The Indian Express The Centre plans to fix minimum national monthly wages at around Rs 15,000 for all jobs in both the formal and informal sectors in the country. The National Minimum Wages Act, 1948, lays down minimum wages for 45 listed economic activities, which also serve as minimum wages for these activities in the states. However, states can specify minimum wages for over 1,600 economic activities. Raising floor wages to Rs 15,000...

-The Indian Express Hardly 58 per cent of rural households in India are engaged in farming activity, which, in turn, contributes not even 60 per cent to their average total monthly incomes. These are the findings of the latest countrywide "Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households" conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) for the 2012-13 crop year from July to June. They refute a common perception regarding agriculture - how it...

The agrarian crisis is far from over. Amidst news of farmers' suicide reported from parts of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, an official document released in December by the National Sample Survey Organisation states that nearly 52% of India's agricultural households were indebted during July, 2012 - June, 2013. The average amount of outstanding loan per agricultural household in India was Rs. 47000 (see link below). Based on a survey of...