-The Telegraph New Delhi: Government scientists have released to industry a portable instrument that they say can detect within 45 seconds some of the commonest contaminants used to adulterate milk in the country. Developed at the Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute in Pilani, Rajasthan, the instrument automatically scans milk samples for detergent, urea, soap, soda and salt without the need to employ technicians. Milk samples are now routinely tested through a range of...

-The Hindu Jan Breman takes a long view of the changes he’s seen in India over half a century. Perhaps no other scholar in the social sciences has studied India’s poor and its informal economy as intensively as Jan Breman. The sheer temporal span of his research is mind-boggling. He began his study in south Gujarat 15 years after India’s Independence — in 1962. And he was in south Gujarat in...

-Livemint.com Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana will kick in from April, before planting for the next rain-fed kharif crop begins The government wants to cover 50% of all farmers under a new and revamped crop insurance policy that seeks to shield farmers from weather-related risks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday. The new scheme, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), was approved by the cabinet on 13 January to address rural...

-Frontline Former psephologist Yogendra Yadav, now a member of the political collective Swaraj Abhiyan, recently toured India’s drought-affected districts. He called it a Samvedna Yatra. During the tour, he took note of the agony in rural areas affected by what he calls “one of the worst droughts in independent India” The drought, according to him, has left farmers and the larger rural community in extreme distress, leading to damaging changes in...

-Observer Research Foundation It is not often discussed in India that there was a time, not too far into the past, when the doctors from the famous All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) performed and promoted sex-selective abortions as an effective and ethical method to address India’s population problem. Some of them even suggested that “the couple keeps on reproducing just to have a son”, and prenatal determination of sex...