-Down to Earth It provides farmers with services to improve productivity and find better prices A non-profit based in Telangana, working on agricultural research and development, has launched a low-cost phone cum tablet computer-phablet-to benefit small holder farmers. "GreenPHABLET will allow information to be precisely targeted to individual smallholder farmers, helping them to purchase inputs at a lower price and get a better price for their produce. It will also link them to...

-The Economic Times Sometimes, putting one and one together does make 11, but many of us seem hardwired in our thoughts to assume rural income growth is a zero-sum game. For example, some people believe subsidies have driven the 15-20 per cent a-year growth in rural wages over the last five years. They come up with "explanations", including "people are selling land and consuming", "rising minimum support prices", and "NREGA is...

-Outlook New Delhi: Around 90 per cent of nurses and 50 per cent of operation theatre technicians employed in various Delhi hospitals use their mobile phones while assisting surgeries, apart from 10 per cent of doctors who check SMSes during the procedure, a study claimed today. The three-month survey by the Heart Care Foundation of India (HCFI) was conducted on 87 family physicians from across Delhi, besides 25 nurses and operation theatre...

-Outlook Why free mobiles to BPL folks is a bad idea  “Here you don’t have money to provide them food, and you are thinking of giving them phones,” scoffs a minister in the UPA government, obviously off the record. His comment mirrors the general negative reaction to the ‘Har Haath Mein Phone’ scheme mooted by the Planning Commission, which aims to provide a free mobile phone to each below the poverty line...

-The Times of India   If you don't act now, Delhi will be starved of electricity and water in the coming years - this was the dire warning given by a group of village women, who have come to Delhi from remote areas of Uttarakhand. Their mission is to shake up the government and get it to restart work on several hydel projects in the state. There is indeed a connection with the...