-The Economic Times Kulvinder Gill, professor of breeding and genetics at the Washington State University in the US, describes himself as a dreamer and an optimist. One of his dreams is to make sure food production does not decline over the next few decades, when increasing temperatures act on the yields of major crops. Specifically, he is beginning a project with six other organisations in India to make wheat less sensitive to...

-Live Mint It turns out that some state officials were using NRHM to enrich themselves The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was launched seven years ago with the goal of improving healthcare delivery to people in villages, especially the poor, through a generous infusion of federal funds. Local authorities were given a relatively free hand in deciding how to spend the money, with the Centre promising funds with no strings attached for...

Contending that the NCERT textbook on political science did not represent the views or prejudices of one or two authors, Yogendra Yadav, who was chief adviser to the NCERT on the subject, said the book was developed by a large team of political scientists, teachers and educationists. “Given the very sensitive nature of the book, the entire text was shown to three eminent historians of contemporary India — Professor Sunil Khilnani,...

-PTI A sentence lesser than life term cannot be awarded to convicts for heinous offences like dowry death where the victim is killed in a brutal manner, the Supreme Court has ruled.   Justices Swatanter Kumar and Ranjan Gogoi rejected the plea of a victim's husband and brother-in-law for leniency on the ground that they were young, their mother was of advancing age. "When the offence of Section 304B is proved, the manner in...

-The Hindu The petition against the Ambedkar-Nehru cartoon, published in The Hindu (“Humour is by no means exempt from prejudice”, June 8, 2012), makes for sad reading. Sad, because it bears the signatures of some of our best scholars, universally admired for their rigorous scholarship, who nevertheless chose to sign a petition short on facts. The petition asks the NCERT's Textbooks Review Committee to “reconsider the Ambedkar cartoon (and possibly other such...