-The Hindu Water Resources Ministry enters into pacts with Germany, Israel and the U.K. New Delhi: India is looking West to learn how to clean and conserve its polluted and dwindling water resources. Grappling with water shortage and pollution in key rivers, the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) is entering into a slew of agreements with Germany, Israel and the United Kingdom to learn how they cleaned and revived key rivers as...

-The Hindu Structural reforms and improving productive capacity can enhance long-term growth NITI Aayog, the government’s policy think tank, is working on a sector-based medium-term planning framework, Union Finance Secretary Ratan P. Watal told a meeting of state finance secretaries on Monday. The new planning framework could replace five-year plans, the last of which is set to end in 2016—17, Mr. Watal said. It was possible to synchronise with the finance commission cycle,...

-The Indian Express A new initiative attempts to economically empower villagers living near Kanha National Park, and protect its green cover and wildlife. The Kanha–Pench forest corridor is rich in biodiversity and home to a large concentration of tigers, leopards, gaurs, barasingha, and cheetal. But with the population of the villages increasing and land holdings shrinking, conservation efforts were paramount. If the needs of the villagers for improved livelihoods are not...

-BBC More than 20,000 housewives took their lives in India in 2014. This was the year when 5,650 farmers killed themselves in the country. So the number of suicides by housewives was over 250% more than the farmers. They also comprised 47% of the total female victims. Yet the high number of homemakers killing themselves doesn't make front page news in the way farmer suicides do, year after year. In fact, more than 20,000 housewives...

-The Tribune The Centre for Equity Studies, Delhi, conducted a survey to gauge the impact of the switch to cash transfers on the consumption patterns of the poor in Chandigarh. The preference for kind vis-a-vis cash transfers was recorded. Importantly, public opinion found no place in the decision- making process. Feroza Begum had to make a choice between food security and her children's education. Allow me to rephrase it: Feroza Begum had...