If someone is a rural male, what occupation would he prefer? A rational person might say that depending on the highest prevailing daily wage rate in a particular occupation (which is subject to seasonal variation) vis-à-vis the rest, he will make his choice.   An exercise undertaken by the Inclusive Media for Change team based on the latest available month-wise wage data of rural men shows that there is a seasonal variation...

-Hindustan Times/ IANS/ PTI Protesters marching to close Vedanta’s Sterlite Copper plant tried to attack the district collector’s office in Tamil Nadu’s Tuticorin, say officials. New Delhi: Nine people died in a coastal city in southern Tamil Nadu on Tuesday when police fired at hundreds of protesters marching against a copper smelting plant tried to attack the district collector’s office, said officials. Protesters who blame the Vedanta group’s Sterlite plant for health problems...

-Business Standard 1.5 million quintals of Tur to be imported under MoU between India and Mozambique, even as farmers hold 4 times more Mumbai: In what appears to be another instance of farmers’ interests being hurt for no fault of their own. And this time, too, it's pulses. The year 2016-17 was a crisis year for pulses, with prices skyrocketing past the Rs 100-150 per kg mark amid crop failure. In the following years,...

-The Telegraph As Prime Minister Narendra Modi prepares to mark his fourth anniversary in power, V. Kumara Swamy takes stock of how hollow his promises to farmers have been. Will there be a price to pay? Hemant Patidar, a farmer, has been camping at the Mandsaur mandi in Madhya Pradesh with 15 quintals of “good quality” garlic for more than a week now. The price has been on a downslide for the...

-The Hindu An estimated 10 million people in nine districts of West Bengal drink arsenic-laden groundwater. Priyanka Pulla finds that despite alarms having been sounded over decades, the State government has moved at a glacial pace to tackle the crisis, while people struggle to cope with the symptoms On a Thursday morning at the government primary school in Madhusudankati, a village in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, a gaggle of five-year-olds...