-The Hindu Business Line Trade sources feel this will give them access to the 10-million-tonne ASEAN market Bengaluru: At a time when domestic producers of commodities such as dairy and plantation products including coffee, tea, rubber, pepper and arecanut, among others, are wary of the proposed RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) deal, the Indian rice trade is keen that the cereal is included as part of the agreement as it could help...

-The Tribune It’s a paradox that food-surplus India is ranked 102nd on Global Hunger Index This strange paradox of plenty remains unexplained. At a time when grain silos are bursting at the seams, the 2019 Global Hunger Index (GHI) has ranked India 102nd among 117 countries, placing it in a category with ‘serious’ levels of hunger. As if this is not enough, the latest UNICEF report on the State of World’s Children...

-The Indian Express At a privately-run centre in South West Delhi, where residents include destitute women and victims of trafficking aged above 18 years, “a resident reported a shocking incident of sexual abuse where she was made to remove her salwar and chilli powder was inserted in her vagina. New Delhi: In a report to the Delhi government, a Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) audit of shelter homes for women...

-The Indian Express A change in definition is expected to improve their ease of doing business and help create more jobs. It has been reported that the government will soon change the way it defines the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). “We will have one meeting and then finalise it (changes to MSME definition),” Union Minister Nitin Gadkari told news agency PTI, adding that extensive changes will be made soon....

-Frontline.in The first ever Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey exposes the shocking state of Indian children’s nutritional status, but this is apparently not an issue of major concern for the government or the opposition. The findings of one of the largest nutrition surveys ever conducted in the country on the shifting conditions of undernutrition, over-nutrition and obesity expose the disconnect between the one-sided and much-eulogised India growth story and the abysmal state of...