-The Times of India In recent months, racial violence has been foregrounded in the US, with the Charleston incident in which nine black church-goers were gunned down and other incidents of police brutality that are no longer possible to deny. And all of a sudden, Black Twitter has become a preoccupation with the US media, reminding it of its own evasions. Hashtags around race like #icantbreathe #Blacklivesmatter found their way into many...

-Hindustan Times The picture of rural Indian life today that emerges from what is probably the world's largest study ever of household deprivation is sobering and sombre. It describes a massive hinterland still imprisoned in persisting endemic impoverishment, want, illiteracy and indeed hopelessness. It tells a story that every thinking and caring Indian must heed. Advocates of free markets, opposed to building a welfare state, have long argued that accelerated market-led economic...

-Hindustan Times India is on course to be the world’s most populous nation by 2022, surpassing China sooner than previously estimated, according to the UN’s 2015 Revised World Population Prospect report. The estimates forecast a remarkable quickening of India’s population growth between 2015 and 2050, while China’s is projected to remain flat and then start declining. “Within seven years, the population of India is expected to surpass that of China,” said the new...

-Hindustan Times A nutrition plan within the National Food Security Act meant for pregnant women and lactating mothers, a vulnerable group that skews India’s hunger indices, looks quietly buried. It still runs as a trial in 52 districts, two years after the landmark legislation was signed into law. The Centre hasn’t yet begun budgeting for it to expand the maternal health scheme to cover the whole country. While a parallel scheme under...

-Hindustan Times Mumbai: Just how much debt does it take for a farmer in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra to take the extreme step of killing himself? The shocking findings of a new study reveal it could be as little as Rs 10,000. Days after fresh data from the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) revealed that Maharashtra has the highest number of suicides by distressed farmers among all states, a new analysis...