-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The housing ministry has identified 305 cities and towns across nine states to start building houses for the poor in urban areas. The government has set the target to provide houses to two crore families belonging to the economically weaker section (EWS) in urban areas by 2022. The states that are likely to gain are Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, J&K, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan and Telangana....

-Al Jazeera Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to narrow the gap between Indian elites and the rest of the population India has experienced a significant economic growth spurt in recent decades. After seeing annual growth of 3 percent in the years after independence in 1947, the rate began to double, reaching a rate of around 6 percent per year after 1980. However, the distribution of growth proceeds has been very uneven...

-The Hindu Thrissur (Kerala): Hard and dedicated work has won laurels for Samrudhi, a Kudumasree unit from Madakkathara. It has been chosen for the award best agriculture operations among Kudumbasree units in Thrissur district. Samrudhi’s success story began three years ago when an MoU was signed between the district authorities of Kudumbasree and the Kerala Agricultural University t(KAU) o permit the 10-member unit to cultivate vegetables on a five-acre land of the...

-The Financial Express Two years of bad rain makes even Punjab vulnerable When a Punjab is flagged as an area of some risk following bad rain, it is time to get seriously worried. The state may have, as ratings agency Crisil points out in its latest report on Indian agriculture, as much as 98.8% of its cropped area under irrigation, but with a 50.4% shortfall in rain last year and a likely...

-Frontline As rural Karnataka reels under an unprecedented wave of suicides by farmers, the State administration looks on, unwilling to address the reasons that have rendered rural livelihoods fragile. DEATH stalks rural Karnataka. In the 41 days between July 1 and August 10, as many as 245 farmers committed suicide, an average of six a day; since April 1, 284 farmers have taken their lives. As a bewildered State government gropes...