-The Indian Express The incidence of farmers taking their own lives is higher in regions where cooperative banks are the weakest. Nanded (Maharashtra): The verdant soyabean fields at Digras today are a far cry from the barren landscape they presented only a few months ago. But for residents of this village in Ardhapur taluka of Nanded district, the memories of drought in three out of the last four years will not fade...

-The Indian Express Within overall food inflation, the price of pulses, fats and vegetables rose quicker than that of cereals. The result is that fewer people can buy these foods. As India’s 70th year of Independence begins, widespread progress is evident, but in rural India, where 833 million Indians (70 per cent) live, people are consuming fewer nutrients than are required to stay healthy, according to a National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The proposed surrogacy law that prevents women from renting out their wombs for financial gain will be a blow to infertile couples unable to find the service for free, sections of doctors in infertility treatment services said today. The specialists said a law that insists that a surrogate woman has to be a close relative of the infertile couple would be "impractical" and may also raise the risk...

-The Indian Express India should learn from China and start with liberalisation of rural land, labour and capital markets before attempting bigger things. Independence Day has come and gone with its usual mix of celebrations, pride and ruminations on how things could be better. Interestingly, several media commentaries tagged the event with the 25th anniversary of economic reforms, launched in 1991 around the same time of the year. They largely dwelt on the theme...

Rising prices of dal: How to deal with it? The 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. In India, however, ordinary citizens are under enormous duress due to the skyrocketing prices of dal/ lentils since the last one year. The website of Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs shows that dal prices varied across places. For example, the...