-Livemint.com The International Water Day serves as an annual reminder of the mess in management of water resources In an intriguing order on 20 March, the Uttarakhand High Court has recognized the rivers Ganges and Yamuna as a living entity, which means that anybody found polluting the river would be seen as harming a human being. It remains to be seen what impact the order has but the order does reflect a...

-Livemint.com Lessons learnt from the Right to Food case can be applied for other social issues that end up at the Supreme Court’s doorstep every day New Delhi: In 2001, 47 tribals and Dalits were starved to death in south-eastern Rajasthan as the state reeled from its third consecutive year of drought. The tragedy occurred despite India’s warehouses were brimming with an excess of around 40 million tonnes of foodgrains that year. Weeks...

-Livemint.com India’s Human Development Index score falls 27 % due to regional disparities in education, health parameters and living standards within the country New Delhi: India’s human development index (HDI) ranking for 2015 puts Asia’s third largest economy among a group of countries classed as “medium” in the list as opposed to “low” in the 1990s, thanks to factors like an increase in life expectancy and mean years of schooling in the...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Opposition today came down hard on the government for the "agrarian crisis" and demanded waiver of loans of farmers across the country and not only of those from Uttar Pradesh as promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during campaigning. During a debate on Demand for Grants for the Agriculture Ministry in the Lok Sabha, members from opposition parties said over 12,000 farmers had committed suicide last year and asked...

-Livemint.com An agriculture ministry notification issued last week said the maximum sale price of BG-II Bt cotton will be Rs800 per 450gm packet of seeds New Delhi: After a reduction in the retail price and royalty fees of genetically modified (GM) Bt cotton seeds last year, the agriculture ministry has kept prices unchanged for the upcoming Kharif crop season. According to a notification issued by the farm ministry on 10 March, maximum sale...