-Scroll.in Suranga is a horizontal tunnel-like well excavated in a hillside. Even as Kerala reels under severe drought, Gangadhar Rao never misses a day to irrigate thousands of areca nut trees, coconut trees and pepper plants on his 30 acres of farmland. Rao is a farmer from Bedadka Panchayath in Kerala’s northernmost district of Kasaragod and depends on Suranga for all his water needs — irrigation and domestic — round the year. Suranga is...

-Hindustan Times On Sunday, Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami met the farmers protesting at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi and assured them that their demands would be met in a month’s time. But by convincing the protesting farmers to suspend their agitation, Mr Palaniswami has not addressed the problem — he has only managed to avert what could have soon become a political crisis for both the Centre and state....

-The Hindu Business Line The solution lies in better prices for produce, generating non-farm income, and reducing costs of farming After the Yogi Adityanath government waived farm loans of about ?36,000 crore for UP farmers, pressure has mounted on other States to follow suit. But contrary to common belief, debt waivers aside from possibly guaranteeing electoral victory, do little to alleviate the plight of farmers. Neither do they help kick-start the rural...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: In the last five years, over 28 lakh units of blood and its components were discarded by banks across India, exposing serious loopholes in the nation's blood banking system. If calculated in litres, the cumulative wastage of 6% translates to over 6 lakh litres —a volume enough to fill up 53 water tankers. India faces, on average, a shortfall of 3 million units of blood annually. Lack of...

-Frontline.in Magsaysay Award winning activist and national president of the Safai Karmachari Andolan Bezwada Wilson is a co-petitioner with Major General (Retd) S.G. Vombatkere in a Supreme Court case relating to the Aadhaar project. He raises an important concern about the impact of Aadhaar on people born into oppressed castes, particularly safai karmacharis, or manual scavengers. Excerpts from an interview he gave Frontline: * What is your opinion on Aadhaar? There is no...