-Press Release from Centre for Budget Analysis (CBGA) and Jan Awaaz New Delhi, 29 November 2014: There have been a number of media reports recently around possible cuts in Union Budget allocations for the current fiscal 2014-15 in case of social sector programmes, i.e. reductions in allocations in the Revised Estimates (RE) for 2014-15 as compared to the Budget Estimates (BE) that were made in July this year. This issue deserves...

-The Hindu The deaths of Chaiti Bai and other women after a botched tubectomy in Chhattisgarh are an opportunity to reflect on the problems India faces in the pursuit of modernity and global status, especially in health and education A sudden death always has great pedagogical value. The death of Chaiti Bai, a Baiga tribal woman, following a botched tubectomy at a mass sterilisation camp in Chhattisgarh recently, can improve our perspective...

-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,...

-Deccan Herald Western Ghats are particularly rich in wild relatives of tuber crops. Tuber crops not only enrich the diet of the villagers in this region, but also possess medicinal properties to cure many ailments or at least check their incidence. The eco-nomically and socially important tropical tuber crops are cassava (Manihot esculenta), sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), yams (Dioscorea alata, D.esculenta and D.rotundata), aroids which include elephant foot yam, taro, tannia,...

-Down to Earth New climate report warns of longer droughts, extreme weather, and increase in ocean acidification The world's atmosphere is already locked into a 1.5 °C temperature rise because of past and predicted greenhouse gas emissions, posing serious threat to lives and livelihoods around the world, according to a new climate study commissioned by the World Bank Group. The report, Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal, warns...