-The Hindu Stress on trained cleaners, protective gear New Delhi: Concerned by the incidents of workers dying while cleaning sewers and septic tanks, the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry has asked all States and Union Territories to set up emergency response sanitation units (ERSU), which would include trained cleaners wearing protective gear. In letters to all Chief Secretaries on July 12, Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra wrote: “The...

-The Economic Times Zero-budget farming is being promoted in several areas as a low-cost, natural alternative to prevalent practices of heavy use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. NEW DELHI: The government has asked the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), India’s top farm research institution, to conduct a study on the efficacy zero budget farming (ZBF) results before its nationwide rollout. NITI Aayog member and agricultural economics and policy expert Ramesh Chand...

-The Hindu Many in Jharkhand have been denied food under the public distribution system as their ration cards have been cancelled in the mad rush for putting in place a digital system. While activists claim that some have died from starvation, the government denies this. Shiv Sahay Singh Reports on the faulty PDS A few weeks before Kaleshwar Soren, 45, died, he sold the last of his belongings, a Palash tree, for...

-The Indian Express Estimates are not perfect, but the process is revised and fine-tuned. Former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian’s recent paper claims that the Indian GDP growth may have been overestimated by 2.5 per cent per annum between the period 2011-12 and 2016-17. A note by Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) rejects the methodology, arguments and conclusions of Subramanian’s paper. A study done at our institute by Ashima Goyal...

-Scroll.in/ The Third Pole Flash-flood warnings routed through NGOs are giving border villages precious lead-time to escape the wrath of suddenly rising rivers. In the last few weeks of June, a series of WhatsApp messages were sent from Bhutan to India to warn cross-border friends downstream of the Aai, Saralbhanga and Manas rivers about cloud-bursts, swollen rivers and possible flash floods affecting people in the Indian state of Assam. Although originating from officials,...