-The News Minute Rice Diversity Blocks in Kerala and five other states preserve over 1,000 indigenous varieties of rice that were at risk of being lost. In the Indian subcontinent, the birthplace of paddy, the colours of the crop’s many varieties are as diverse as the land, its people, languages, cultures, costumes, dialects and so on. But most of that variety was lost, when farmers were asked to forgo indigenous varieties...

-The Asian Age Replacing income-tax with a banking transaction tax is an unworkable idea. The poor will end up paying a lot more: Subhanil Chowdhury The idea that all taxes in India should be abolished, except import duty, and replaced by a bank transaction tax (BTT) is a deeply flawed one for a number of reasons. First, there are only few countries in the world that do not have income-tax — oil rich...

-The Hindu Economic growth alone is not enough to achieve key Sustainable Development Goals. It must translate into jobs for the poor and marginalised India is the fastest growing large economy in the world today. Despite this, one in every five Indians is poor. Multilateral agencies as well as governments are playing an active role in understanding problems relating to poverty and hunger and finding solutions to them. But these challenges are...

-Frontline.in The PDS, the ICDS and the MDM schemes constitute lifelines for a vast majority of the population. Maternity entitlements need to be seen both as a right for women and as instruments in the battle against undernutrition. A government that ignores or undermines them does so at its own peril. THE GLOBAL HUNGER INDEX 2016 puts India at 97 out of 118 countries. The release of these numbers is great...

-PTI Job creation in India successively slowing down; employment might shrink 7 million by 2050 As many as 550 jobs have disappeared every day in last four years and if this trend continues, employment would shrink by 7 million by 2050 in the country, a study has claimed. Farmers, petty retail vendors, contract labourers and construction workers are the most vulnerable sections facing never before livelihood threats in India today, the study by...