Failure of kharif crop and mounting debts stated to be reasons  The interest rate on private loans ranges between 24 and 36 per cent The district witnessed 15 deaths in 3 days during November Sixty-nine farmers from Adilabad district committed suicide during the kharif season that lasted from August to November 2009 and the number grew to 93 by December 15, if reports from the non-governmental organisations and farmers’ associations in Andhra...

Spiralling prices of pulses have shown India’s dependence on imports. Pulses are integral to India’s diet but not its food policy. As a result, supply cannot meet demand. What are the consequences and solutions? Surendra Nath has switched to eating grass-pea, though he knows it is not good for health. But so is tobacco, he argues. He cannot do without pulses and pigeon-pea selling at Rs 100 a kg is beyond...

With often preventable, non-communicable diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory illness accounting for 60 per cent of all global deaths, experts from around the world gathered at a United Nations forum today to draw up plans to reverse the trend. Solutions exist to prevent premature deaths from such diseases by cutting tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and the harmful use of alcohol, yet the...

The global economic crisis has wiped out developing Asia's recent gains in poverty eradication as the meltdown is expected to have driven 21 million more people in the region into poverty. A joint report by the United Nations and the Asian Development Bank shows that the global economic slowdown has slackened trade, slashed export and tourism receipts and raised unemployment levels. This makes it difficult for the region to achieve its...

K.N. Raj, widely respected development economist and teacher and one of the architects of the Indian Plan edifice, passed away here on Wednesday. He was 85. Dr. Raj — who was the economic adviser to Prime Ministers from Jawaharlal Nehru to P.V. Narasimha Rao, and set the pace of India’s economic growth story from the First Five-Year Plan — had been keeping indifferent health for some time. He was admitted to...