-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Hit by drought in two consecutive years due to deficit Monsoon, India's food-grain production is likely to decline this year. The government's FIRst 'advance estimates', released on Wednesday, put the total Kharif (summer) foodgrain production for 2015-16 at 124.05 million tonnes (MT) which is 2.26 MT less than the 'actual' Kharif output of 2014-15. If one takes into account only 'FIRst advance estimates' of Kharif foodgrain...
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Small leap forward in child health -Jean Drèze
-The Hindu While the Rapid Survey on Children points to substantial progress in fields that have become a focus of serious action, such as safe delivery, it also highlights the penalties of inaction in other fields The recent release of summary findings from the Rapid Survey on Children (RSOC) has generated remarkably little interest in the mainstream media. The main focus of attention so far has been the indifferent performance of Gujarat...
More »Electricity for all — villages or households? -Debajit Palit
-The Hindu Business Line Even as village after village in India is ‘electrified’, many households within them, equal to the US population, are not The Prime Minister in his Independence Day speech reaffirmed the goal of “power for all” and said 18,500 villages which still have no electricity would be electrified within the next 1,000 days. The goal of complete electrification was FIRst stated by the Rajadhyaksha committee on power in 1978...
More »Cabinet approves additional 50 days of work for rural households in drought-hit areas -Vishwa Mohan
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: With India's 40% of the area facing drought situation due to deficient Monsoon rainfall, the government on Wednesday approved additional 50 days of employment over and above 100 days per household per year under the MGNREGA in drought affected areas. The move to increase the days of employment from 100 days to 150 days was approved by the Union Cabinet, which met under Prime Minister Narendra...
More »The comprehensive healthcare alternative -Nachiket Mor
-The Hindu Rescuing Maternal and Child Health-only systems, which have become under-resourced and have built a very high-cost but low-performance culture, will be a challenging task. Given the rising burden of non-communicable diseases, there is an increasing demand to build health systems that can address these concerns. However, given how large the unfinished agenda of the Millennium Development Goals is, the Indian government has chosen to stay focussed on Maternal and Child...
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