-IPS News SUNDARBANS: November is the cruelest month for landless families in the Indian Sundarbans, the largest single block of tidal mangrove forest in the world lying primarily in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. There is little agricultural wage-work to be found, and the village moneylender's loan remains unpaid, its interest mounting. The paddy harvest is a month away, pushing rice prices to an annual high. For those like Namita Bera,...

-The Hindu Business Line   Polyhouse farms yield more than a same-size land holding in this salubrious corner of the country Until a few years ago, monkeys and pigs destroyed everything the farmers grew in the villages around Jubbar Hatti, 25 km from Shimla. Today the same farmers earn big money from growing exotic vegetables like bell capsicum or carnation flowers, but inside a cluster of polyhouses spread across five panchayats in a...

-The Hindu They have neither sought review of CIC ruling nor challenged it in court Seventeen months after the Central Information Commission ruled that the Right to Information Act applied to six national political parties, none of them has complied with the Act or appealed against it. A full Bench of the commission, comprising Information Commissioners Vijai Sharma, Sharat Sabharwal and Manjula Prasher, had posted a hearing on the parties' non-compliance with its...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Conditional cash transfer instead of providing grains at subsidized rates to the poor under the Food Security Act can save at least Rs 30,000 crore annually, said Shanta Kumar, chairman of a panel set up to revamp the state-run Food Corporation of India (FCI). Kumar said linking cash transfer to conditions such as constructing toilets was one of the several options being considered to ensure every...

-The Hindu The Working Group on Intellectual Property can serve as a platform where real time solutions to meet India's need for low-cost medicines can be addressed After what seemed like a historic trip for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which held out the promise of reshaping India-U.S. relations positively, the initiation of the Out-of-Cycle Review (OCR) by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has brought a sobering reality check as to what...