-Frontline Changing the way you count changes the count. THE total number of farmer suicides in the country since 1995 crossed the 3,00,000-mark in 2014. However, the 2014 data are not comparable with 19 earlier years of farm suicide data. This is because of major changes in the methodology of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). With the new parameters, the number of farmer suicides in 2014 falls to 5,650. That is...

-Tehelka Last year’s Red Fort rhetoric has not been matched by action on the ground, with separate toilets for students remaining elusive as ever One part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech on Independence Day this year can safely be predicted: the reeling out of statistics to prove that the Swachh Bharat campaign is sweeping the nation. The cleanliness drive launched on 2 October, 2014, was announced from the ramparts of the...

-The Indian Express Why is no political party protesting the non-implementation of the protection act? With suspicious attacks on whistleblowers, the Vyapam scam has highlighted the vulnerability of those who show truth to power. The string of corruption scandals that have surfaced in the last three months have established what many believe — in a country the size and diversity of India, it is impossible for a centralised mechanism to control corruption...

-Livemint.com Effective policy changes at the state-level are needed as this is where the problem and its solutions lie—and not in a National Agricultural Market There have been many attempts at alleviating the pain of the farmer in India, be it natural calamities or market risks, but nothing seems to work, and the problems of farmer distress and indebtedness continue to grow. For some time now, there has been a focus...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Indian weaver is dismissed in high places as an embarrassing anachronism, despite demand for his or her skills and products. In the new millennium, globalisation and a mindless acquiescence to imported notions of a good life threaten to take over, even as the West looks East for better concepts of sustainable living. Analysing today's crisis in the handloom sector, plagued by low-cost imitations from power looms,...