-MoneyControl.com The MET department has forecasted presence of El Nino for the second year in a row, only this time it is expected to be much stronger. Simultaneously the agriculture ministry has also submitted a report on unseasonal rains that impacted the Rabi crops last fiscal. Will the agri community face the curse of weather gods once again? Abhijit Sen, professor of economics at JNU, says a depressed rural income is...

-The Indian Express New Delhi: Nothing encapsulates all that’s wrong with Delhi’s air than Kaushambi, the 600-acre swathe of concrete on the edge of the National Capital Region. A garbage landfill, two inter state bus depots, a state highway, a national highway and two industrial estates: 30 years after work began on this integrated township on the edge of Delhi, Kaushambi is today a cauldron of toxic air housing at least 25,000...

-The Telegraph   Tribal ministry to cover 6 lakh children of indigenous communities in Assam     Guwahati: The Union tribal affairs ministry, with the help of the health department, is Planning to cover at least six lakh tribal children in Assam, including those of tea garden workers, under its sickle-cell anaemia screening programme this year. Sickle-cell anaemia is a blood disorder characterised by an abnormality in haemoglobin that carries oxygen from the lungs to...

-The Hindu If the ‘pro-poor’ Delhi government dismantles its only Bus Rapid Transit corridor, it will only make life more difficult for the least affluent class. The new government in Delhi is reportedly Planning to dismantle the 5.8- kilometre-long pilot Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor and replace it with a six-lane road instead. Those who have followed the saga of the BRT experiment in Delhi will not be surprised by the decision...

-Maintream Weekly In order to reduce and remove the many-sided disadvantages and problems faced by Dalits and adivasis, sub-plans for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have been introduced to ensure adequate and justice-based availability of funds for these communities. Summarising the basic idea and rationale for this, the Planning Commission says: “the persistence of socio-economic backwardness of the SCs and STs in spite of the development efforts had warranted a special...