-Hindustan Times Madhya Pradesh’s Babulal Dahiya is a collector of folk songs and seeds and has sown 110 varieties of rice to preserve them. Bhopal: He is a collector of folk songs and seeds. And it was while collecting Bagheli folklore, this 72-year-old farmer cum Bagheli poet realized that saving folk songs and sayings won’t mean much if the local crop varieties, which repeatedly crop up in the folk literature, are...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The goods and services tax (GST) regime has replaced a cascade of 11 central and state taxes with a concertina of eight tax rates, defeating the original idea of having a three-slab tax structure. The current GST structure on goods ranges from zero to around 40 per cent. If jute, silk and muri (puffed rice) fall in the exempted category, luxury cars and SUVs fall in the top...

-CaravanDaily.com Advocate Flavia Agnes, who has written extensively on women’s issues said that the court ban on triple talaq will prove ineffective as Muslim men may then start deserting their wives. She also accused the media of ignorance over the subject and suggested that they were playing into the hands of vested interests by only highlighting certain kind of reports related to Muslim women. KOLKATA: “Among all personal laws, I regard Muslim...

-The Indian Express An expert panel set up by the green tribunal has said it would take 10 years and Rs 42 crore to revive the Yamuna floodplains, after the damage caused by the World Culture Festival. It was a mela Parvati never saw. The curtains had come up wherever she looked, even around the strip of land where her cows usually graze. “Bandhook leke seedhe khade hue the,” she said about...

-Livemint.com RBI’s testimony to parliamentary panel shows the bank had warned the government of possible inconvenience to the public for some time New Delhi/ Mumbai: India pushed ahead with its decision to demonetise high-value banknotes even as the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) own board expressed concern whether the cash could be replaced quickly enough, the central bank has said in written testimony to parliament. The revelation comes amid growing criticism about whether...