-CivilSocietyOnline.com Kozhikode: Dubai's agriculture minister recently chartered a flight to Kozhikode and, accompanied by a horticulture consultant, headed to the Agriculture Research Station (ARS) at Anakkayam nearby. There the minister, Abdulla Jassim Abdulla M Almarzooqi, placed orders for fruits, spices and ornamental plants. But on his mind was something bigger. He offered free visas and air tickets to the 100 members of the research station's agricultural army, which rather grandly goes...

-The Hindu Hard-working rig-operators are providing a real response to a very real demand from farmers, but with grave consequences for groundwater supplies No other town can boast as deep a connection with the rest of the country as this little one in Tamil Nadu. Machines from here have struck great depths in most Indian States (and in many African countries as well). Tiruchengode is the nation's borewell rig capital and thousands...

-The Telegraph Ranchi district has an e-governance milestone that MGNREGS policymakers in the rest of India can emulate. According to officials, Ranchi has become the state's first district to pay MGNREGS beneficiaries through electronic fund management system (e-fms) in all its 18 blocks. The district, which bagged two prestigious e-governance awards in the course of a month, has again convincingly proved its mettle in an area that has proved to be the most...

-The Indian Express Pandharpur: Jaya Waghela, 52, spends more than an hour cleaning herself every morning. But the soap and water cannot wash off the stench of human faeces she cleans everyday with her broom at 600-odd public toilets along the banks of the river Bhima in Pandharpur district of Maharashtra. "The stench is so overbearing that it has killed my appetite," says Waghela, who has stayed away from her kitchen since...

-The Hindu Kathmandu: Greater cooperation is necessary to protect the fragile ecology of the Himalayas, the world's youngest mountains facing unprecedented human encroachment, concluded the team of Nepali and Indian journalists and researchers that gathered in Kathmandu on Monday to assess the disaster brought by the floods last month. The programme, titled "Ganga-Mahakali catchment disaster" was organised by the Nainital-based People's Association for Himalaya Area Research (Pahar) and the Kathmandu-based Himal Southasian...