-The Hindu Business Line Canada, US serve counter-notification to India India’s minimum support price (MSP) programme for pulses has come under greater scrutiny at the World Trade Organization (WTO) with the US, Canada and Australia serving it a formal counter-notification, alleging that the subsidy involved was much higher than the permitted cap. The EU, New Zealand, Ukraine and Paraguay also joined the chorus against the country. Defending itself at the agriculture committee meeting...

-TheWire.in With the 2019 elections around the corner, political parties should step up to the plate and display their commitment to children’s Nutrition. This week, the prime minister made headlines by serving midday meals supplied by  Akshaya Patra at a school in Uttar Pradesh’s Vrindavan. While he engaged in banter with the children about being late, one of the students wittily interjected that she didn’t mind as she had already eaten at home. While...

-The Hindu There needs to be robust infrastructure for official statistics so that governments do not suppress inconvenient truths Over the past two weeks, headlines have focussed on declining employment between 2011-12 and 2016-17; loss of jobs under the National Democratic Alliance government, particularly post-demonetisation; and the government’s refusal to release a report using the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) documenting this decline, leading to resignations of two members of the National...

-The Indian Express The state has failed to create capacities for a timely, reliable, decentralised data regime. The credibility of India’s data systems is under serious threat with the recent controversy over the employment data of the National Sample Survey. While the Census of India and the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) have a good reputation, when it comes to data related to the social sector — health, education, Nutrition —...

-The Telegraph Govt. views detection as a sign of better disease management The rise in the number of recorded leprosy cases from 86,147 (in 2013-14) to 90,709 (2017-18), reported a decade and a half after India was declared leprosy-free in 2005, has turned the spotlight on the hotspots for the disease. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has set the goal of zero children with leprosy and deformities by 2020, and less than one...