-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com Dehradun: Maletha village in Tehri Garhwal is very angry. Men, women and children sit on the road in dharna, demanding that a stone crushing company grandly called Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram be evicted from their village. The villagers’ problems began in February 2014 when two stone crushers arrived in Maletha with their machines. Their operations created an ear-splitting noise and belched clouds of dust that settled on crops and orchards. In August, another...

-The Times of India A bunch of concerned doctors and members of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) have written a letter demanding an explanation from the IMA for its decision to 'validate' Kent water purifiers. The slew of advertisements released by Kent, in which it has prominently claimed that its products were 'validated', 'approved' or 'accepted' by IMA has led to a slug fest, especially in the online world, between groups...

-IPS News NEW DELHI: Vinita Panikker, 26, considers herself “the world’s most unfortunate woman”. Three years ago, a jealous husband, who suspected her of having an affair with her boss at a software company, poured a whole bottle of hydrochloric acid on her face while she was asleep. The fiery liquid seared her flesh, blighting her face almost entirely while blinding her in one eye. What remains today of a once pretty visage...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday joined the long battle for improving the Capital's notoriously bad air quality by getting Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to commit to a three-month action plan to curb pollution in the National Capital Region. All four states agreed to take time-bound steps to address the problem and come out with a joint medium and long term strategy in July. Under the plan,...