-The Indian Express October is the month of Durga Puja and like in the rest of the country, a warm festive spirit hangs in the air in Odisha. There is a sense of life at its fullest. Memories of Friday the 29th this same month in 1999 temporarily retreat to the background amidst the hope of celebration. Is it surprising that an event 14 years ago should at all be a...

-The Hindu Bangalore: The government has identified 15 basic amenities to enhance quality of life in villages. It has asked gram panchayats (GPs) to make all these facilities available to the people. These include drinking water, playgrounds and open-air theatres. The move is aimed at arresting the migration of rural people towards urban areas. In a circular issued last week, the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Department said of the 6.11...

-Press Information Bureau The India Rural Development Report 2012/13 was released here by Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Rural Development, Government of India. The Report was prepared by IDFC Foundation in collaboration with network partners, the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), the Institute for Rural Management Anand (IRMA), and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), with contributions from several other researchers, experts and civil society organisations. On...

-Kafila.org This fact-finding exercise was coordinated by the CENTRE FOR POLICY ANALYSIS. Team members were the human rights activist and former civil servant Harsh Mander; former Director-General of the Border Security Force, E N Rammohan; Professor Kamal Mitra Chenoy of Jawaharlal Nehru University; National Integration Council member John Dayal; senior journalist Sukumar Muralidharan and CPA Director and senior editor Seema Mustafa. Introduction and Overview The first impression of the Muzaffarnagar countryside, now green...

-The Hindu Groundwater meets three quarters of the State's farming needs The Punjab State Farmers Commission recently published a draft new agriculture policy for the State that envisages substantial crop diversification from paddy and wheat staples that the State has been growing since the sixties. The draft policy, currently being debated in agriculture circles, is the first serious road map to steer Punjab's agriculture towards a new dynamic, necessitated by a sharp...