-The Hindu Literacy has helped people in the State maximise the benefits of the rural employment guarantee scheme Kerala’s achievements have long been celebrated by development economists — high literacy rates, including among girls, low infant mortality rates and so on. There has also been a spate of writings highlighting the ills of Kerala society. Critics have pointed to the high rates of suicides and feminists have also raised difficult questions. While...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: All is not lost for Majuli, although the island on the Brahmaputra in Jorhat district has lost enough already. Experts today said there was no danger of the island disappearing from the face of the earth completely, as new land masses were coming up. “It is true that the Brahmaputra has eroded a substantial portion of Majuli over the years, but historically, it is equally true that soil is getting...

-Down to Earth   Buy an Indian breed from Australia In June last year, we visited Malaysia on the invitation of the country’s oldest and most active consumer action group, The Consumer Association of Penang, to study the livestock production systems and to advise on how these can be transformed into more sustainable and less industrial farming systems. The past 40 years of aggressive industrial growth in Malaysia has seen small-scale peasant agriculture and...

-The Hindu The State government has ordered the increase in daily wages for beneficiaries under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to Rs.132 from Rs.119. Nearly 26.49 lakh persons will be benefited by the government’s gesture. This is part of the efforts made by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, through various schemes, to improve the economy of rural households, considering the fact that villages are the lifeline of the State, stated an...

An expert panel has blamed the increase in commercial plantations for destroying forests, erosion of soil and water bodies in the Western Ghats. According to a Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel report, which was submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) by its Chairman, Prof Madhav Gadgil, water guzzling crops and monoculture plantations such as tea, coffee, and cardamom are responsible for depleting forest wealth. “These crops have aggravated the...