-Livemint.com As many as 23 out of 38 districts have received deficit rain ranging 20-60% of the normal; overall, the 2015 Jun-Sep monsoon recorded a 28% deficit Nitish Kumar, who will take oath as chief minister of Bihar for the third consecutive time, will face a daunting task as he tries to tackle rural distress in the state that has been hit by a drought. The issue had found little mention in the...

-Financial Express The country must double its support to farmers, from the current levels of about 6-8% of the value of agri-output It was in the mid-1980s that the ‘India-Bharat’ phraseology was fist pushed into political jargon, by farmers’ leader Sharad Joshi, with ‘India’ representing the urban elite of the country and ‘Bharat’ synonymous with its neglected rural folk. Joshi, at the time, was leading lakhs of farmers protesting against anti-farmer policies,...

-The Times of India KOCHI: A corporate group opened its account in an election in India for the first time when its political avatar, tackily named Twenty20, breezed into power in Kizhakkambalam gram panchayat in Kerala, winning 17 of the 19 seats. Congress and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) won the other two seats while the Left drew a blank. Twenty20 became widely popular in Kizhakkambalam, a village situated 22km from...

-The New Indian Express Yet another damning report on malnutrition among children in urban slums has made headlines. A study conducted by the Indian NGO Child Rights and You on early childhood has revealed that children living in slums suffer from malnutrition, resulting in underweight and stunted growth. Though the numbers vary from one city to another, there’s very little to cheer about. The percentage of underweight children ranged from 33...

-The Hindu An analysis by Right to Information activists confirms that the Central Information Commission is returning requests for information at a high rate to the applicants. Twelve per cent of all second appeals and complaints received by the CIC this year were returned to the senders, with reasons for the return being made available in only a fraction of cases. As reported earlier by The Hindu, the number of cases the CIC...