-The Hindu Dissenters of the past in India were great moral agitators, introducing social, intellectual and spiritual turbulence in public life. Would they have survived today? Dissent is not only the “safety valve of democracy”, as Justice D.Y. Chandrachud reminded us, but vital for meaningful social life. Societies stultify when everyone converges on a single opinion or when official stories go unchallenged. Flaws congeal and social rot sets in. Right or wrong,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In the wake of recent violence in parts of northern India, allegedly by Kanwarias, the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday decried what it said is the increasing lawlessness and vandalism indulged in by religious groups and said it would lay down guidelines to prevent vandalism by mobs. The top court further said the destruction of private property, even if no FIR is filed, is a cognizable...

-The Indian Express Many BJP-ruled states deny children a food choice that could address malnutrition Two of every five Indian children are stunted. Eggs are nutrition-dense superfoods packed with proteins and essential vitamins. Washington University researchers, for example, have demonstrated with a randomized control trial that feeding infants eggs daily decreased stunted growth by almost half and underweight by three-quarters. Berkeley researchers have also validated that healthy school meals even improve test...

-OdishaTV.in Meet Daitari Nayak, a 70 year old farmer who single-handedly carved out a three kilometer canal from the Gonasika mountains so that the water stream could reach down and irrigate the parched fields and settlements below. The "canal man" as people fondly call him, patiently cut the steep hillsides and cleared the rocks for more than four years to make the stream slowly snake down. Bhubaneswar: The refreshing greens in more...

-Down to Earth Fragments of plastic Film have been shown to release potentially carcinogenic substances into soil Plasticulture, or the use of plastics in agriculture, is evident in the form of lining of farm ponds, greenhouse cultivation, micro-irrigation (drips and sprinklers) and plastic mulching. Plastic mulch, in particular, should be of concern to us as it is a potential source of entry into our food system. Why are farmers turning to plasticulture? The Ministry...