-Hindustan Times An audit report by the accountant general has blamed lack of health policy to poor management of various government schemes for food, nutrition, sanitation, hygiene, health, education and overall welfare for AES deaths in Bihar. Bihar does not have a health policy and its budget also does not focus on any specific area of attention in health sector despite the scourge of acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) for over a...

-Hindustan Times Prayagraj, or the erstwhile Allahabad, tops this unemployment list with an unemployment rate of 8.9%. It’s no mere coincidence that Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj has the dubious distinction of being the city with the highest unemployment rate in the country. Government record shows that a whopping 1.5 lakh unemployed youth are in the queue of those hunting jobs which are few and far in between. The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) in...

Among the measures announced by the Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman on 23rd August, 2019 to arrest economic downturn, the following are noteworthy: * Allow Bharat Stage IV (BS-IV) vehicles (which are purchased till 31st March, 2020) to remain operational for the entire period of registration; * Government shall lift the ban on purchase of new vehicles for replacing all old vehicles by its various departments; *...

-Hindustan Times The Constitution promises religion-neutral citizenship. NRC and its fallout could upend that The controversy unfolding in Assam over the National Register of Citizens (NRC), published on August 31, has brought to the fore important fault lines in the construction of citizenship in contemporary India. In particular, it places the spotlight on the role of key institutional actors – the bureaucracy and judiciary – in adjudicating citizenship. Crucially, the implementation of...

-Hindustan Times The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) said it will support the agitation being planned by United Front of Banking Unions against the government’s decision to merge ten banks. Thiruvananthapuram: The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), labour wing of the RSS on Saturday criticised the bank merger plan announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman saying it was done without any study and it will only protect interests of corporate houses. “No serious...