-Down to Earth In rural India, poisoning accounts for four in 10 suicides due to swallowing of pesticides A World Health Organization (WHO) case study carried out in two Tamil Nadu villages shows the link between limited access to pesticides and the reduction in the number of suicides. A WHO report based on the study says that the suicide RATe in these two villages reduced after pesticides were kept in storerooms instead...

-Down to Earth Communities are coming together in Jharkhand to create vigilance mechanisms to enforce food entitlement programmes Five-year-old Lalita and Kundan used to spend most of their day under a banyan tree in Pandanberha village in Deogarh district, Jharkhand. There was no anganwadi (child day care centre) or a playschool for more than 90 children in the village. There were also 14 pregnant and six lactating mothers who were deprived...

-The Times of India With the introduction of a minimum educational qualification to contest panchayat elections, an overwhelming majority of the rural population in Haryana and Rajasthan rural population has been effectively barred from contesting. In Haryana the minimum qualification is matriculation for unreserved seats while it is class eighth for seats reserved for women and scheduled caste candidates. Census 2011 data shows that only 16% of the rural population aged 20 or...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Monsoon rains have revived in the worst-hit central India and southern peninsula regions that would help boost kharif crops and water level in reservoirs, a top official of Met department said on Wednesday. Monsoon deficit has been at 12 per cent so far this season (June 1 to September 2). However, the rain deficit in the southern peninsula and central India was 22 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively,...

-The Indian Express India has the highest number of child deaths in the world, with an estimated 1.2 million deaths in 2015 — 20 per cent of the 5.9 million global deaths. Chennai: Has India fallen short of the under-five child mortality RATe target of 42 per 1,000 live births by 2015? While new data from medical journal The Lancet said it had, officials at the Union Health and Family Welfare...