For past several weeks, thousands of farmers in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Jharkhand have been left in the lurch. They had planted urd and til crops in a large acreage, and to their dismay no grain formation took place in the standing crop. Unable to bear the economic loss, at least four farmers have reportedly committed suicide. Thousands of farmers have been pushed deeper into economic distress....

Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah on Tuesday announced that 10,000 remote villages across the country would be electrified with renewable energy sources by March 2012 under an innovative initiative that will also generate employment. “We will provide electricity to 10,000 villages at the cost of Rs. 500 crore by the end of the current plan period,” Dr. Abdullah said, while addressing a press conference to mark the...

More hands join to support the cause of `Kisan Swaraj' and `safe food for all, sans Bt'. Adding momentum to this cause, the Kisan Swaraj Yatra reached Bangalore on Sunday. At a public meeting in the Institute of Agricultural technologists (IAT), Kodihalli Chandrasekhar, president, Karnataka Rajya Raithara Sangha (KRRS) assured that over 5,000 farmers from the state will join the yatra when it ends at Raj Ghat, in New Delhi, on...

The mountainous state-owned food stocks lying in the open and rotting in the rain are in stark conflict with a failing public distribution system , hunger, malnutrition and high food prices. The poor management of food stocks provoked the Supreme Court to transgress into executive domain when, on August 12, the court made certain directions like limiting procurement to covered warehousing capacity and distributing the rotting foodgrains free of cost...

KEY TRENDS   • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14    • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...