-The Hindu The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employee Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) has generated more rural employment than any other government scheme or private initiative in the history of independent India. At the same time, it has also generated a great deal of controversy over its merits and demerits. It would be fair to say that the policy establishment in the country right now is not favourably disposed towards the MGNREGA, with the...

-Economic and Political Weekly This article examines the decline in coverage levels of the Routine Immunisation Programme in the better-governed states across three rounds of the District Level Household and Facility Survey. The analysis points to an urban conundrum where proximity to urban centres is a "risk factor." An understanding of peri-urbanisation processes is essential for improving outcomes and governance in Urban health services and the National Urban health Mission. Purnamita Dasgupta...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Day temperatures dropped marginally on Thursday but there was hardly any relief for weather-beaten Delhiites as toxins in the air rose alarmingly due to a cloud cover trapping pollutants. The capital's air quality index (AQI) breached the 'severe' level, going from 219 (poor) on Wednesday to 410 in one of the sharpest single-day spikes in recent months. Fine particle pollution (PM2.5) that AQI measures wasn't the...

-Hindustan Times A dominant feature of the first year of Narendra Modi's leadership is the quiet dismantling of India's imperfectly realised framework of welfare and rights, covertly, by stealth.   A declared pro-corporate agenda, such as the land acquisition ordinance, proved politically messy and costly. Therefore, the government resorted instead for an enfeebling of the welfare architecture of the country through a combination of fiscal withdrawals, ignoring even legally mandated obligations.   But this attracted...

Due to the annual decline in under-5 mortality rate by almost 7% during 2008-13, the Government is hopeful of India attaining the target 5 of Millennium Development Goal-4 i.e. reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the U5MR. This has been revealed in a press release on checking child mortality rate by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, dated 28 April, 2015.   However, experts think that this will be...