-Hindustan Times Prioritise universal access of food grains since those dying of starvation are mainly the marginalised Forty-four-year-old mother, Amir Jahan, epitomised gallantry this Republic Day. There was not a morsel of food at home. So, while the nation celebrated, she quietly borrowed six rotis from a neighbour and distributed them equally among her three daughters, though she hadn’t eaten for four days. That night Amir died of starvation. In the first month...

-Scroll.in The proposed law is almost identical to the United Progressive Alliance’s 2008 Pesticide Management Bill. Months after more than 40 people in three states were reported to have died in the second half of 2017 after being exposed to spurious pesticides, the Bharatiya Janata Party government has begun consultations on a new Pesticides Management Bill. The deaths in rural maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Telangana highlighted the fact that the Insecticides Act...

-The New Indian Express HYDERABAD: A recently published study on the causes of 1,325 suicide cases reported at the 1,000-bed Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Warangal over a span of six years (2010-15) raises many questions as 519 cases (58.3 per cent of total) were due to consumption of pesticide and another 174 cases (17.4 per cent), were due to consumption of herbicides and fungicides. The study titled “Trends and determinants of...

-The Hindu The children of the farmers who committed suicide do not receive the support or counselling they need to recover from the resulting mental trauma. Jyoti Shelar visits the villages in maharashtra worst affected by farmer suicide and reports on these minors’ struggle to get their lives back on track “Every time I open the door, I see my father’s body,” says 14-year-old Nikita Surwase, pointing at the iron shaft on...

-The Indian Express Minimum temperatures are likely to come down by 2-3 degrees Celsius in Northwest, Central and Western India over the next 48 hours, the IMD said. The current spell of rain in North and Central India will be beneficial to the standing rabi crop, especially wheat, though there are concerns over chana (chickpea) and masur (lentil) that are in the maturity or harvesting stages. “This rain is very good for wheat...