-The Financial Express   In what could be a big question mark on the world's largest jobs scheme. In what could be a big question mark on the world's largest jobs scheme, the number of people who availed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) fell 8.4% year-on-year in 2013-14, reports Raj Kumar Ray in New Delhi. Also, only a tenth of the people enrolled got the promised 100 days of...

-NewsMobile.in   Suicide rates in India are among the highest in the world. With 187,000 suicides per year, one-fifth of all global suicides occur in India. Farmer suicides are often reported in the media and are subject to a great deal of political debate. A recent study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine indicated farmer suicides might be disproportionate to the population as whole, reporting rural suicide rates were twice...

A study by Jonathan Kennedy and Lawrence King, published in the Lancet journal Globalization and Health (2014) has found that liberalization of the agricultural sector in the early-1990s is responsible for the agrarian crisis and, therefore, farmers with certain socio-economic characteristics -- cash crops cultivators, with marginal landholdings, and debts-are particularly at risk of committing suicide. In short, the study detects that the differences in the structure of agricultural production explain...

-Live Mint Skill development in teachers and selection on stringent quality can deliver desired educational outcomes in India While school education is largely a state government subject, the centre can do a lot to create an enabling environment for government and private entities, ensure accountability and shape flagship programmes. Access to and enrolment in school education in India have grown significantly in the last two decades, to over 90% now. This should...

-The Telegraph Shillong: The National Green Tribunal has ordered a stop to rat-hole coal mining across Meghalaya and it observed that neither the government nor the people were benefiting from "illegal mining" except the "coal mafias" while warning against illegal transportation of the mineral. This is the latest instance that a national authority has intervened in the traditional and unscientific form of coal mining that has been the order of the day...