-The Hindu The campaign to end open defecation can succeed only if it takes communities with it India’s declaration on the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi that its rural areas are now open defecation-free will be acknowledged around the world as a milestone in its developmental journey. Cleanliness and sanitation were central to Gandhi’s concerns for his vast number of impoverished countrymen, and should ideally have been pursued zealously by governments...

-The Hindu Business Line Farmers’ organisations have threatened to disrupt the functioning of Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMC) in Maharashtra if the Centre sticks to its stand of prohibiting onion exports and imposing limits on stocks. Farmers in the onion hub of Nashik said that they would agitate against the government’s decision as farmers are facing the brunt. With onion prices rising, the government had on Sunday prohibited exports until further notice and...

-India Today There is an expected 40 per cent gap in the global water supply, the 2.1 billion people who lack access to safe drinking water and the fact that water has ranked in the top five risks for eight consecutive years in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report. The global water crisis is not a new story. Every year, I review statistics which are becoming all too familiar: an expected...

-The Hindu Business Line Noted Gandhian economist Dr Sudarshan Iyengar surveys the distressed agricultural landscape, pinpoints its weaknesses, and prescribes solutions with their roots in Gandhian agronomics. Edited excerpts from an interview to BusinessLine: * Given the agrarian crisis in India today, how relevant are Gandhi's economic principles based on the village economy, and equitable distribution of resources? They are relevant in the context of Gandhi's view of gram swaraj (village self-rule), which...

-India water Portal Deconstructing the traditional narrow engineering based policy discourses around floods and droughts and connecting them to social and cultural realities is the need of the hour in India. India has witnessed extreme weather conditions this year. While parts of the north and south have battled drought like conditions this summer, the northeast and western coastal areas witnessed heavy rains and floods. While climate change has been highlighted as one...