-The Hindu Health protection scheme for 10.74 crore beneficiary families and 50 crore Indian citizens The healthcare SECtor has welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement in his Independence Day address that the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyaan, also known as Ayushman Bharat or the National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM), will be launched on September 25. The government-sponsored health insurance scheme will provide free coverage of up to ?5 lakh a family a year...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The BJP-led Centre, which has been taunted as "anti-Dalit" by the Opposition, is considering a proposal to promulgate an ordinance to nullify a court order that ruled in favour of department-wise reservations in university recruitments. The human resource development (HRD) ministry will send a proposal to the cabinet to consider promulgating an ordinance for a new law that would provide for the implementation of reservations treating the entire...

-ThePrint.in Manual scavenging is a reality and Dalit women, particularly, will be forced to shoulder the burden of cleaning dry pits. Prime Minister Narendra Modi frequently tweets appreciation for on-ground workers of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA). One such widely shared post was an image of the SECretary in the ministry of drinking water and sanitation, Parameswaran Iyer, going down a double-pit toilet in a rural home and cleaning it. He was lauded...

-Livemint.com Rural development SECretary Amarjeet Sinha on how MGNREGS has evolved since 2006 to result in income, acreage, water tables, productivity and fodder availability Agrarian distress and rural distress are terms used interchangeably, but the rural economy today is very different from what it was many years ago, given the diversification of rural incomes and hence incorrect to think one means the other, says Amarjeet Sinha, SECretary, ministry of rural development. In...

-TheStatesman.com Vijay Jardhari, who started the ‘Beej Bachao Andolan’ Uttarakhand in 1986 along with fellow farmers, has dedicated his life to conserving traditional seeds, which otherwise would have disappeared due to wide acceptability of hybrid seeds among farmers Dehradun: Flashback 1986: Whenever farmer and social activist Vijay Jardhari and his friends would visit any village telling locals to conserve their traditional seeds and to continue consuming millets, people would make fun of...