In Focus by The Hindu

If you or your child has a bad cough, the first thing you’ll probably do is reach for a cough syrup. It’s easy, it's available over the counter and there’s no fuss about taking it. But does it work? Is it at all effective to help your cough go away? Last year, a panel of the US Food and Drug Administration came to the agreement that phenylephrine, a common ingredient used in a number of cough and cold medicines is completely ineffective.Health bodies across the world emphasise that over-the-counter cough and cold medication should not be given to very young children – but this continues to be a common practice in India, despite the fact that research has pointed out that it may not even work for them.Two months ago, the Indian government too issued an order with regard to this – it said that a cold medicine combination that contained two ingredients, chlorpheniramine maleate and phenylephrine, should not be used for children under the age of four and these drugs should be labelled accordingly.So should over-the-counter cough/cold medications be stopped for young children? Are they safe for older children to take? If they are ineffective, why are they being prescribed and sold? What can adults use instead? Tune in to find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pakistan goes to the polls on the 8th of February to elect members of what will be its 16th lower House or National Assembly.The polls come just as former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been convicted in two successive cases and stands debarred from contesting elections. His party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf, or PTI as it is known, is fighting with its back to the wall.Pakistan Muslim League leader Nawaz Sharif fancies his chances of becoming Prime Minister for an unprecedented fourth term. Many analysts believe that he has the blessings of the Army establishment on this occasion.The Pakistan People’s Party of Bilawal Bhutto and Asif Zardari is also in the electoral fray, with Bilawal Bhutto training his guns on Nawaz Sharif.A far-right Islamist Party, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, could cut votes of mainstream parties. It is a party to be watched. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the past few weeks, there has been a surge of complaints from passengers about Digiyatra. Their main complaint is about security personnel and airport staff collecting their biometrics for the app, using coercion and deception. According to travellers, CISF personnel at the entry gates were asking them to scan their boarding pass and capturing their photos, and then enrolling them in the Digi Yatra app without even informing them. The element of coercion is especially startling as the Ministry of Civil Aviation, when it unveiled the Digi Yaytra policy in 2018, had made it clear that it would be entirely voluntary.Digital rights experts have highlighted several other concerns about the Digi Yatra app, related to privacy, surveillance, exclusion, lack of transparency and accountability, and violation of the passenger’s dignity and autonomy. The Ministry, on its part, has said that the only objective of the Digi Yatra’s biometrics-enabled, digital processing of passengers is to usher in “paper-less and seamless movement through various checkpoints” at airports. Is the Digi Yatra app safe? Is it reliable? How do airports in other countries process passengers? And is Digi Yatra really worth it or should it be withdrawn? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a crossover episodeOn February 1, the BJP-led government will place its Interim Budget in Parliament, seeking a vote on account.Has the NDA government’s economic performance in its second term fared better than its first? Here we discuss the question. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Australian Open likes to call itself ‘the Happy Slam’ and this year’s edition sure turned out to be a happy one for India. Rohan Bopanna became a Men’s Doubles Grand Slam champion for the first time and claimed the World No. 1 ranking at the age of 43. In Men’s Singles, Sumit Nagal made it to the main draw after coming through three qualifying rounds and scored an upset victory over 31st seed Alexander Bublik in the first round – the first time in nearly 40 years that an Indian has beaten a seeded player at a major.The first slam of the year also produced a new Grand Slam champion in Jannik Sinner, while Aryna Sabalenbka mounted a successful defense of the title she won last year.With the Australian Open setting the tone for the rest of the season, some intriguing questions arise. Will 2024 be the year that Gen X finally takes over from the Big Three? How can Sumit Nagal build on his Australian Open exploits to move further up the rankings? And who are the exciting new names to watch out for in the months to come?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This year’s Annual Status of Education Report or ASER, ‘Beyond Basics’, surveyed over 34,000 young people aged between 14 and 18, in 28 districts across the country, to get an inkling into: what are the young people of India currently doing? What are their basic maths and reading abilities like? And how do they navigate the digital world through smartphone use?The results were perhaps not very surprising given that ASER, which is brought out by the NGO Pratham, has been flagging concerns about reading and numeracy levels among primary school children. It showed that about 25% of these teens could not read a second standard text fluently in their regional language and over 50% struggled with a fourth standard-level division problem.It also showed however, that over 85% of these teenagers were enrolled in an educational institution, and that digital awareness skills are high – nearly 90% had access to a smartphone and knew how to use it.What do these results indicate about the education system in India? How is the country doing with regards to the Nipun Bharat Mission which aims towards foundational literacy and numeracy? Will the gaps in education hurt the employment prospects of young people and how can they be fixed? Can their ease with digital devices be harnessed towards bettering their education? Tune in to find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

India's public distribution system is switching to distributing fortified rice to reduce anemia, but poor communities reject it. Concerns include adverse reactions, exclusion of individuals, lack of trust, and infrastructure issues. The partnership between a vitamin company and the government raises conflict of interest concerns. This podcast questions the need for fortified rice and highlights the importance of supporting local farmers and exploring alternative solutions.

What began on October 7 as a conflict between Israel and Hamas seems to be spreading across the entire region. Even after 100 days of a conflict that has already claimed the lives of more than 25,000 people, Israel’s military assault on Gaza continues.But this war has sprouted many secondary plot-lines: Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shia group backed by Iran, has been exchanging fire with the Israeli military. Shia groups that serve as Iran’s proxies have been attacking US and Israeli assets in Syria and Iraq. Israel itself has been carrying out assassinations of senior Iranian generals and intelligence officers.And Iran has done strikes on what it claims were Mossad assets in Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan. It also carried out missile and drone attacks on Pakistani territory, sparking a retaliatory strike on its own territory from Pakistan. Amid all this, the Houthis of Yemen have kept up attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and in response, the US has been bombing Houthi positions in Yemen.So, how does one make sense of all that’s going on? Is the West Asia security architecture unravelling? And how are these confrontations likely to develop in the weeks to come? Tune in to find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The podcast discusses a report by NITI Aayog on poverty reduction in India, analyzing the decrease in poverty rates and number of people lifted out of poverty. It explores the concept of multi-dimensional poverty and highlights flaws in the data used. The use of interpolation and extrapolation in the report is questioned, along with the inclusion of bank accounts as poverty indicators. The limitations of assessing multi-dimensional poverty in India and skepticism about the report's conclusion on poverty reduction are also discussed.

Having a loved one in intensive care at a hospital is an experience many of us have gone through, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s a stressful time, what with the strain of a relative being ill, the decisions you may have to take, and the costs you have to tackle. What should ICU care look like in India? The Union Health Ministry recently released a list of guidelines that list out criteria for ICU admissions and discharges, the role of intensivists or critical care specialists in the ICU and the patient as well as the family’s right to refuse admission.What do these guidelines say? How do doctors usually deal with consent in ICU settings? What happens if there is a difference of opinion between patients and doctors when it comes to ICU care?Tune in to find out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices