Five must-read stories—February 23

Exoplanet discovery: 7 Earth-sized worlds found orbiting nearby star

A huddle of seven worlds, all close in size to Earth, and perhaps warm enough for water and the life it can sustain, has been spotted around a small, faint star in the constellation of Aquarius, reports The Guardian.

Extreme caution on demonetisation numbers: Arvind Subramanian

Chief Economic Adviser to the Indian government Arvind Subramanian on Wednesday told The Indian Express that there’s extreme caution about numbers the government puts out on demonetisation. Also, he said India cannot grow at 8-10% unless exports grow at 15-20%.

3 lakh Indians in US at deportation risk

Nearly three lakh Indian-Americans are likely to be impacted by the Trump administration’s sweeping plans that put the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation. A PTI report in The Hindu.

Spurious drug burden is lower

Indian drugs are not as low in quality as previously projected by some global studies, reports The Tribune. The largest ever survey of drugs to test substandard and spurious formulations has revealed one in 25 medicines as “not of standard quality” as against the “one in seven” previously estimated by some studies.

Centre's ₹10,290 cr boost for health hides cuts for key schemes

Despite a ₹10,290-crore increase in health funding for 2017-18, an IndiaSpend probe of the Centre's health budget shows that most of this money is not being spent on India’s health priorities—the tuberculosis and vaccination programmes—which, instead, now face funding cuts.