-Down to Earth Death of cotton farmers due to pesticide poisoning in the Vidarbha region raises vital questions about the government's attitude towards regulation of toxic pesticides One more evil has reared its ugly head in Maharashtra’s arid Vidarbha region, which has so far been infamous for farmer suicides. Some 35 farmers in the region have died of pesticide poisoning in last four months. Most of them were working in cotton and...

-Frontline.in The Assembly elections have put under intense scrutiny Narendra Modi’s Gujarat model of development which is touted as worthy of replication throughout the country. Audit reports of the CAG provide ample evidence of it being inefficient, corrupt and not beneficial to the common people. THE standard indicators of development, as is understood in theory and practice, comprise a range of indices, and not necessarily the level of private investment in...

-Down to Earth Jean Dreze argues that we should not leave the making of an equitable society to experts alone What does one make of the shameful statistic that over 200 million Indians still subsist below the poverty line? How does one square it with the equally obscene distinction that we have the world’s fourth largest number of billionaires, thus making India the second most unequal nation after Russia? Indeed, how...

-The Times of India RAIPUR: Witnessing tremendous drop in child malnourishment in last five years through various beneficial schemes, Chhattisgarh's Balrampur district hopes for better results than before as administration has made it mandatory to provide eggs to 44,000 Aanganwadi children as its pilot project. Children who don't prefer to eat eggs are provided milk and banana once a week. It's apparently the first time that Aaganwadi children are bring served with...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: The controversy over stubble burning continued to have an impact on wheat sowing across Central and North India with the total area under wheat cultivation slumping by 12 per cent to 110.66 lakh hectares (lh) as compared to the corresponding period last year. The total acreage under rabi crops, however, inched close to normal, thanks to an increase in the area of cultivation of pulses and...