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⦁ In a major tweak to the organ donation policy, the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday said the clause that people aged beyond 65 could not receive cadaver organ transplants had been removed. ⦁ “The government has decided to do away with the ceiling. Now, people beyond 65 in need …

India banned e-cigarettes in 2019. Ecigarettes were still available through online stores and local vendors. “Instances of such devices being sold at convenient/stationary stores near educational institutions have also been reported, which is resulting in easy access by young children to such products.” The increasing availability of such prohibited products …

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in a report flagged the “inhuman and deplorable” condition of all 46 government-run mental healthcare institutions across the country. The report notes that the facilities are “illegally” keeping patients long after their recovery, in what is an “infringement of the human rights of mentally …

Somanchi, Anmol, ‘Food and Social Security at the Margins: The Parhaiyas of Jharkhand’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 58, Issue 4, January 28, 2023. While many government policies and schemes have been announced across the country to help vulnerable communities, it is imperative to look at the extent to which …

The links between childbirth and mental disorders have been described for hundreds of years. Mental illness after childbirth isn’t merely of historical interest. As illustrated by the findings of the U.K. Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths, suicide is a leading cause of maternal death following childbirth. In India itself, the …

The stagnant allocations in the Budget for health, education and nutrition reminded me of the film The Last Czars. Emperor Nicholas asks his communist captors why he has been imprisoned despite loving Russia and being loyal to it. Budgets are boring documents if we look at them only in terms of financial …

In the wake of the death of a juvenile in a State-run home in Chengalpattu district, the Tamil Nadu government on Monday announced that a high-level committee would be constituted to review and improve the functioning of observation homes, special homes and places of safety under the Juvenile Justice Board. …

Tamil Nadu’s Gross Enrolment Ratio dropped by 2.1 percentage points to 46.9% in 2020-21 from the year before, the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) released on Sunday showed. India recorded a marginal increase in GER from 25.6% to 27.3%. Tamil Nadu was among very few States that recorded …

The Economic Survey 2022-23 presented on January 31, a day ahead of the Budget, showed that 6.49 crore households demanded work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Of these, 6.48 crore households were offered employment by the government and 5.7 crore actually availed it. The survey …

India’s domestic pharmaceutical market, estimated at $41 billion in 2021, is likely to touch $130 billion by 2030, as per the Economic Survey 2022-23, tabled in Parliament on Tuesday. Highlighting the role of the Indian pharmaceuticals industry globally, the Survey showed the country was ranked third worldwide in terms of …

The budgetary allocation for education as a percentage of total expenditure has dropped over the past seven years, from 10.4% to 9.5%, the Economic Survey, 2022-23 says. While the expenditure on social services increased from ₹9,15,500 crore to ₹21,32,059 crore, the share of education within this umbrella category shrank from …

Almost half of all health spending in India is still paid by patients themselves directly at the point of treatment, though out-of-pocket expenditure has dropped as the government’s share of spending on health went up significantly after 2013-14, the Economic Survey 2022-23 says. The share of government in the total …

The Union Education Ministry on Sunday released data from the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), 2020-2021, which showed a 7.5% increase in student enrolments across the country from the 2019-20 figures, with the total enrolments reaching 4.13 crore. The survey revealed that in 2020-21, when the COVID-19 pandemic …

Two snake catching experts from the Irula community — Vadivel Gopal and Masi Sadaiyan — were chosen to be honoured with the Padma Shri awards on Wednesday. Lakshmanan highlights the plight of the Scheduled Tribe communities in Tamil Nadu and the need for some remedies in the article dated November …

Ravi Verma, hired by an electrical parts manufacturing firm early last year as India’s economy surged, was fired in November when the company lost several export orders. He has since remained unemployed, unable to pay back a ₹1 lakh loan he took to buy a two-wheeler. Verma is among thousands …

Google is laying off 12,000 workers, or about 6% of its workforce, becoming the latest tech company to trim staff as the economic boom that the industry rode during the COVID-19 pandemic ebbs. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google’s parent Alphabet, informed staff Friday at the Silicon Valley giant about …

After a gap of four years, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) report for 2022 was recently released in New Delhi. This nationwide household survey that covers all rural districts in the country generates estimates for schooling and basic learning for every State in India. Data from 2018 and …

The ASER 2022 report shows that government schools saw a sharp rise in enrolment for the first time in 16 years; basic literacy levels of children have taken a big hit, with their reading ability, as compared with numeracy skills, worsening much more sharply and dropping to pre-2012 levels As …

India is reeling under an acute shortage of specialist doctors, with a shortfall of nearly 80% of the required specialists at Community Health Centres (CHCs), reveals the Rural Health Statistics report published by the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry on Thursday. The CHCs are 30-bed block-level health facilities which …

The Union government’s proposed measures for regulating online gaming in a draft amendment to the Information Technology (Intermediary Liability and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 leave several questions unanswered. Some of these proposed measures, such as the establishment of a self-regulatory body, collection of know-your-customer (KYC) information from players, …