-The Hindu Bengaluru: In the arid Budnahatti village just beyond Challakere, the four borewells dug to provide villagers with drinking water have started drying up because of consecutive droughts. “There is barely one INCh of water yield from here, not enough for everyone in the village. We have requisitioned authorities to drill three more borewells, but we may have to go more than 1,000 feet deep to get some water,” says Eswarappa,...

-The Hindu The institution can play an important role in refreshing India’s fiscal federalism India’s Constitution-makers thought of India as a union of States with a centripetal bias, done, advisedly, to preserve the unity and integrity of a newly fledged nation. SINCe then, the Indian economy, polity, demography and society have undergone many changes. The new aspirational India is now firmly on a growth turnpike. It is in this context that we...

-Down to Earth Government cites INCreasing pollution and heatwave in the state as reason for the ban The Government of Bihar recently banned felling of trees, citing INCreasing pollution as well as a fatal heatwave. Trees on private land, however, can be felled in the absence of a tree-protection Act in Bihar. The current order was passed under the Forest Conservation Act, DK Shukla, prINCipal chief conservator of forests, told Down To Earth (DTE)....

-TheWire.in Over a 100 children have died in Bihar due to AES – or acute encephalitis syndrome – a deceptively straightforward umbrella term for infections that cause swellings on the brain. An outbreak of infections classified as acute encephalitis syndrome (AES). * What is AES? AES is an umbrella term of infections that cause swellings on the brain. Its symptoms typically INClude headache, vomiting, confusion and seizures, and complications INClude memory loss, coma and...

-IndiaSpend.com Mumbai: As 128 children died of encephalitis in Bihar over 19 days to June 21, 2019, a new study reports that the state’s rural population prefers government investment in public healthcare over roads, jobs and cash transfers. In a survey conducted by the Brookings Institution, an American research group, in an administrative block of Bihar, 3,800 respondents--comprising the poor, less-educated and disadvantaged caste groups--were asked to make a choice: an INCremental...