-The Hindu It’s complex than elsewhere both in terms of number of rates and jurisdictions The form of Goods and Services Tax being implemented from July 1 is uniquely Indian, according to former Planning Commission member and former Chairman of the National Statistical Commission Pronab Sen. In an interview to The Hindu, he says the indirect tax regime will make it easier to start a new company, but increases complexity for those...

-The Hindu Barrier-free tributaries flowing in can mitigate the effect, factoring in high-impact projects A new study has found that dams and other barriers across rivers in the Western Ghats do affect fish species and their recovery downstream. However, barrier-free tributaries that drain in to these rivers can help fish recover even in dammed stretches; protecting such tributaries could be crucial to maintaining fish diversity in the Western Ghats. The Western Ghats is...

-Livemint.com Crop insurance has failed to provide much-needed relief to farmers from destitution With one farmer committing suicide every half-an-hour, the number of farmers who have ended their lives as per official records in India is estimated at over 300,000 over the past two decades. These numbers do not include suicides by agricultural labourers, though they too are victims of the agrarian crisis. As each death affects at least the immediate family...

-The Hindu Around the world, nearly 1.6 billion people are affected by a group of diseases so ignored that the term used to refer to them is called neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). These are a cluster of 17 diseases affecting the poorest people living in the least developed pockets of the world. While some of these diseases may be unfamiliar, leprosy, kala-azar and filariasis are better known in India and being targeted...

-Frontline.in The British government, on the basis of an 1891 report on the subhuman living conditions of “Pariahs” by James H.A. Tremenheere, Acting Collector of Chengleput, assigned 12 lakh acres of land for distribution to the “depressed classes” of the Madras Presidency to empower them socially and economically. But more than 100 years later, much of this land is in the possession of non-Dalits, and the struggle to reclaim them has...