Though organic farming has its own advantages, depending solely on it will not help augment food requirements of the country, said director general of ICAR S Ayyappan. “Organic manures can augment the microbial activity, prevent environmental deterioration and restore soil health. It can reduce the chemical load in soil and farm produce. But at this juncture, when quantum of food is close to deficit, one cannot truly identify with the sole...

Indian civil society was dismayed and horror-struck when human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen, who has spent over three decades caring for the poor in tribal areas of central India, was sentenced to life imprisonment for ‘sedition’ along with two others, Piyush Guha and Narayan Sanyal by a Raipur Sessions Court judge.  Protests are taking place everywhere in the country and the members of India’s vibrant civil society, peoples’ movements,...

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought a response from the Delhi government on a PIL requesting quashing of nursery admission guidelines framed by the government on the grounds that they violated the Right to Education Act. The court also issued a notice to the Centre and asked for its reply within six weeks. The next date of hearing on the matter is in March next year. The PIL was filed...

A Public Interest Litigation was filed in the Delhi High Court on Monday seeking quashing of the nursery admission guidelines framed by the Delhi Government. The PIL contends that the guidelines violate the Right to Education Act. The PIL was filed by a civil rights group Social Jurist. Challenging the government notification’s validity, its lawyer Ashok Agarwal said the move giving private schools a free hand to formulate their own admission criteria...

State governments as well as Central agencies have opposed a proposal to use money from the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) for building community centres under the Union government’s flagship rural jobs guarantee programme. Officials said managing accounts for such a diversion would be difficult and could lead to the misuse of funds. A meeting of state government representatives and district collectors, meant to revise MPLADS guidelines to make...