-The Hindu   The figure for households without toilets is 47 per cent for Hindu households as against 31 per cent for Muslims and 16 per cent for Christians and Sikhs, according to NSS data. Extensive new evidence shows that building toilets alone will not eliminate open defecation in India as not everyone who has access to toilet, especially men, believe that it's important to use it. Not having a toilet remains the major...

-The Telegraph Kolkata: The Bengal government's decision to select insurance companies quoting the lowest premiums for a centrally funded health care scheme has hit private hospitals that are refusing patients citing non-payment of claims by the firms. Senior officials of the health department said thousands of poor patients registered under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana were being refused admission by hospitals and nursing homes across the state every month. The registered families...

-Economic and Political Weekly The provisional results of the Sixth Economic Census (2013) of establishments in the non-agricultural sector suggest that this is not a census count. A comparison with the National SAMple Survey numbers shows that the number of workers in the latest census may be only a little over half the actual number. There also appear to be some serious omissions in individual states. R Krishnaswamy and S L Shetty...

-Economic and Political Weekly Despite economic growth, government latrine construction, and increasing recognition among policymakers that open defecation constitutes a health and human capital crisis, it remains stubbornly widespread in rural India. We present evidence from new survey data collected in Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Many survey respondents' behaviour reveals a preference for open defecation: over 40% of households with a working latrine have at least one...

-The Hindustan Times Not budging from its position, the US remains at the forefront of nudging India to give up its stand on farm subsidies for food stockpiling in order to clinch a trade facilitation pact at the World Trade Organisation. According to sources, US will yet again take up the issue as part of a "larger plan" to get India to drop its position during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to...