How clean are our rivers? Latest data indicates a negative trend.  A report by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), which was released in September this year, reveals that in total there were 45 river stretches across the country in 2016-17, where water quality is found to be the worst. In 2014-15, however, the total number of such river stretches was just 34. Technically speaking, the value of biochemical oxygen demand...

-The Telegraph Glare on late diagnosis and poor management New Delhi: Delayed diagnosis, poor chronic disease management skills and faith in unproven traditional-medicine therapies are barriers to the effective treatment of diabetes in India and other South Asian countries, a group of doctors has cautioned. A seven-member team from academic institutions and hospitals in India, Britain and Australia has said an improvement in doctors’ skills and the release of updated diabetes management...

-The Telegraph Ankita Meena said the decision of the authorities amounted to a violation of her fundamental right to reproduce children as she had mostly Been absent on maternity grounds New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked Delhi University to respond to a plea a law student has filed challenging the varsity’s decision to detain her in the third year for inadequate attendance. Ankita Meena said the decision of the authorities amounted...

-The Telegraph The number, according to the figures reported by the states in 2015, was around 13,770. The latest survey found 20,596 manual scavengers in 2018 New Delhi: Manual scavenging has Been banned since 1993 but there has Been little impact on the ground. The latest data from a survey conducted by the National Safai Karamcharis Finance & Development Corporation this year on manual scavengers has found their number has risen by over...

-Livemint.com Loan waivers and electricity subsidies are band-aids at best; a deeper transformation is needed The past few days have neatly summed up the scale and nature of the challenges facing India’s agriculture sector. First, the provisional agriculture census 2015-16 showed that landholdings have continued their decades-long trend of fragmentation, leading to a further rise in the proportion of small and marginal farmers. Then, 30,000 farmers, who had started their march from...