-Hindustan Times The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has released data on accidental deaths and suicides in India. According to the report, 12,602 people engaged in the farm sector committed suicide in 2015, 2% more than in 2014. This highlights the growing distress in rural India thanks to consecutive years of drought and other natural calamities. The report shows that the share of farm suicides in total number of suicides has increased...

-Hindustan Times Dehradun: Digamber Negi, 37-year-old farmer in picturesque Doon Dwara village on the border of Dehradun-Tehri Garhwal districts, is cursing his fate after monkeys barged into his field a week ago and destroyed vegetable crop. Like Negi, several other villagers have similar plight to share. The village has a population of 320 people and they are dependent only on agriculture. Villagers complain that in the past one decade or so, attacks by...

-Hindustan Times Water management should be at the heart of all smart city planning. While there is a lot of emphasis on transportation and infrastructure development, water management remains limited to treatment of waste water, quality monitoring, and smart metering in the government’s smart cities strategy. No clear plans have emerged on how smart cities are to be linked with their water catchments to ensure sustainable provision of water. More clarity is...

A press statement issued from the Right to Food Campaign on 27 December, 2016 says that the demonetisation of old currency notes of Rs. 500/- and Rs. 1000/- denomination wreaked havoc on the livelihood security of the poor people. The labouring and toiling masses, who are mostly engaged in the informal sector, have been adversely affected due to the scrapping of old currency notes of Rs. 500/- and Rs. 1000/-...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: The Union cabinet cleared on Wednesday an ordinance to penalise those found holding a “high amount” of scrapped banknotes. The Specified Bank Notes Cessation of Liabilities Ordinance makes holding a large number of old Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes a criminal offence that will attract a jail term and a monetary penalty of five times the amount of old cash one is caught with. The ordinance allows exchange...