KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

-Moneycontrol.com The development comes amid growing evidence that Indian kids, even those from affluent backgrounds, have much lower values for height and weight against WHO standards. One expert warned that nearly 30% of Indian children under 5 are malnourished and by using the new standards, the government may show that to be just 15-20% The Indian government, for the first time, has initiated moves to develop country-specific growth standards for children amid...

-IANS/Business Standard Reports also suggested that thousands of children are being born with birth defects The Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the worlds largest and most lethal chemical disaster, occurred on the intervening night of December 2 and 3 in 1984, 38 years ago. Its aftermath continues to wreak havoc in the lives of hundreds of thousands of survivors. According to the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation (BGTRR) of the Madhya Pradesh government, which...

-The Telegraph With the funds blocked, I’ve been unable to pay some suppliers who want to be paid before they supply again, says a scientist Dozens of scientists who had been invited from positions abroad to join academic institutions across India under a prestigious government fellowship have not received research grants or salaries for months, the fellows and other scientists have said. The delay in the release of funds for the Ramalingaswami Fellowships,...

-TheWire.in * Neither the CDSCO nor the national advisory group on immunisation was taken into confidence before Prime Minister Modi announced the rollout of booster doses. * In reply to a series of RTI applications by The Wire Science, the PMO and the health ministry refused to divulge details of the government’s decision-making. * One reply indicated that the government had misled the Supreme Court about the availability of the minutes of an...