-The Telegraph Rohtas: The Kaimur plateau, once an arms training centre for Maoist cadres, is turning out to be a hub of medicinal plants. Thanks to Ritesh Kumar Pandey, a progressive farmer, the plateau has turned from "red to green". Cultivation of medicinal plants such as ghreet kumari (aloe vera), ashwagandha (withania somnifera) and shatavar or satavari (asparagus recemosus) on the water-starved land has created a buzz among the residents of Maoist-hit districts...

-The Hindu Funds from Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan are pumped into ‘schools' in Bastar that don't exist On the day the Chhattisgarh government issued a statement emphasising how the Prime Minister's adviser, T.K.A. Nair, praised the efforts to educate children, 32 students of Koynapada primary school in Darbha block in Bastar district did not attend school. In fact, they could not as the school does not exist. An official confirmed that the disappearance...

-Frontline Many of the targets of U.N. Millennium Development Goals may remain unachieved by India, if one goes by the latest progress report. In his keynote speech at the Jaipur Literary Festival held in January, Professor Amartya Sen highlighted the vast disparities of development in India. Whereas in some States such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala the human development indices are on a par with many European nations, many States have...

-The Tribune Punjab: No doubt there is a pressing need to restore the fast deteriorating underground water balance in Punjab and parts of Haryana because of excessive withdrawals of water to meet the irrigation requirements of water-guzzling crops, particularly the rice crop. In Punjab available canal water hardly meets one-fourth of the water requirements of the agriculture sector and three-fourth water requirements are met through the pumping of underground water. In...

-The Hindu In the case of technologies with benefits and risks, it is important to have regulatory mechanisms which can help analyse them in an impartial manner It is 61 years since the beginning of new genetics based on the discovery of the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. It is also 31 years since the production of transgenic plants. The first patent for a living organism went to Dr. Anand...