-The Hindustan Times Every second woman in rural India walked an average 173 kilometres - the distance between Delhi and Vrindavan - to fetch potable water in 2012, making her trek 25 kilometres longer than what it was in 2008-09. Data released this week by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), a ministry of statistics and programme implementation wing, gives two broad hints when compared with previous studies: economic...

-The Business Standard Monsoon revival saves standing crop but fails to fill drinking water wells, triggering acute shortage in some areas Jhunjhunu/Nawalgarh: Just opposite the highway leading to the Jhunjhunu district headquarters lies the hamlet of Pratappura. It is indistinguishable from the thousands of small dwellings that dot the countryside, but for the chasm between the upper and lower castes in this Jat-dominated area. The divide has widened after the sole source...

-Economic and Political Weekly How will the amendments to the Factories Act affect women workers? How do women view the "protections" and night work? Apoorva Kaiwar (akaiwar@yahoo.co.in) is a labour lawyer and consultant on issues of gender and labour. The central government is proposing to amend several labour laws. The process of amending them has been underway since 2011, which means that it is not only the new dispensation that is eager to...

-The Hindu Business Line Battling childhood diarrhoea with an Indian vaccine is good strategy Almost half of India's 1,76,000 diarrhoeal deaths in children below five are caused by rotavirus, the pathogen responsible for severe childhood diarrhoea. In addition, 8 lakh hospitalisations and over 30 lakh outpatient visits each year among children below 5 are triggered by diarrhoea of rotavirus origin. WHO recommends the rotavirus vaccine for infants in all national immunisation programmes. Globally,...

-The Telegraph In her recent book, Green Wars, the environmental journalist Bahar Dutt, writes: "The editor of a leading media house, everytime I pitched a green story, would invariably complain: ‘Environmentalism is stalling growth; all I am interested in is double-digit growth for this country.'" The idea that environmental protection and economic progress are at odds is widely held among India's elite. It is shared by newspaper editors, economists, businessmen, and, not...