-The Tribune Sangrur (Punjab): The number of patients facing respiratory problems has gone up in the area these days. The trend is being attributed to burning of paddy stubble in the fields by farmers. Doctors say the number of patients suffering from throat infections, allergic bronchitis, productive cough, asthma, itching and burning in eyes has doubled these days. Despite a ban on burning paddy stubble, around 75 per cent of the paddy...

-The Hindu Reports that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government intends to radically restructure the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) have re-ignited public discussion on the scheme. Since its launch, debate on MGNREGA has been synonymous with ideological contestations on the role of the state and its welfare functions. Inevitably, the contours of the debate have been shrill, leaving little space for an evidence-based discussion on the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: After being in deep freeze for over three months, a global trade deal is finally in sight with the US and the European Union showing signs of accepting India's demand for providing flexibility to developing countries in fixing minimum support price for farm products. In return, India will sign the stalled international treaty on easier customs rules once an agreement on the contentious food security...

-The Indian Express The Right to Information (RTI) has never been without its sceptics. In the past few years, attempts to check it have become so persistent that they seem part of a larger design. One sees in them shades of jittery response by the great organs of the state and their moribund bureaucracies, forced out of their comfort zone defined by that perennial bane of good governance, "axiomatic institutional secrecy". The...

-The Hindu NALGONDA - THOTAPALLI (KARIMNAGAR DT) (Telengana): Nearly 330 ryots end lives since September 20. Already in debts, the delayed monsoon forced the 28-year-old Janganaboina Paramesh to sow cotton seed twice but they did not sprout due to extended dry spell. As the tragedy of farmers committing suicide due to crop failure stares the five-month-old Telangana government, the gruesome tales continue to haunt villages across the State. Nearly 330 farmers were...