-CivilSocietyOnline.com Kozhikode: Dubai's agriculture minister recently chartered a flight to Kozhikode and, accompanied by a horticulture consultant, headed to the Agriculture Research Station (ARS) at Anakkayam nearby. There the minister, Abdulla Jassim Abdulla M Almarzooqi, placed orders for fruits, spices and ornamental plants. But on his mind was something bigger. He offered free visas and air tickets to the 100 members of the research station's agricultural army, which rather grandly goes...

-The Hindu Palakkad (Kerala): The Scheduled Caste Development Department has recommended the Government to cancel the acquisition of 3.5795 hectares of land of nine tribal families for a private company for granite mining at Dhanyam tribal hamlet in Padavayal village of Attappady. Integrated Tribal Development Project (ITDP) officer of Attappady P.V. Radhakrishnan, on the complaint of usurping tribal land, on Friday said that the acquisition of all their land including houses made...

-IndiaResists.com The ongoing debate between two stalwart economists, Amartya Sen and Jagdish Bhagwati, must be joined by those who understand contemporary realities and challenges in terms altogether different from those of mainstream economists. In a recent (July 27) article in Times of India, Bhagwati's co-author Arvind Panagariya characterizes the differences between the two in the following terms. Sen favours education and health measures as being the first steps to tackle poverty...

-The Times of India BHOPAL: Residents of Karadia village in Sehore district dread monsoon- because heavy rain maroons the village and in absence of road connectivity it remains cut off from the mainland. Efforts by villagers to apprise local administration and elected representatives about the problem have failed to yield positive results. Like inhabitants of 7,000 villages that have no connectivity with mainland, villagers in Karadia wake up with a prayer- no...

-The Hindustan Times India's fabled growth story has just been exposed by an unlikely source - the World Bank (WB). Unlikely, because this institution is one of those most responsible for advocating economic growth as the pillar of Development. In a report released on July 17, the WB states that the cost of environmental damage amounts to 5.7% of India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This effectively means (though the report fights shy of...