-The Indian Express New Delhi: Nothing encapsulates all that’s wrong with Delhi’s air than Kaushambi, the 600-acre swathe of concrete on the edge of the National Capital Region. A garbage landfill, two inter state bus depots, a state highway, a national highway and two industrial estates: 30 years after work began on this integrated township on the edge of Delhi, Kaushambi is today a cauldron of toxic air housing at least 25,000...

-The Hindu Aim of the exercise is to map damage due to closure of 17,000 govt. schools. Eight months after the BJP government closed down 17,000 government schools in Rajasthan, dramatically pushing up the dropout rate largely among marginal communities, the Congress has decided to undertake a survey, starting in Jaipur's Amber block, to map the damage. Once the audit is over, a campaign to force the State government to reopen the closed...

-Frontline   The BJP-led NDA government has, in the two Budgets it has presented so far, revealed itself to be very different from the pro-farmer image that its leading election campaigner and now Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, projected. THE Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha election states: "Agriculture is the engine of India's economic growth and the largest employer, and BJP commits highest priority to agriculture growth, increases in...

-Business Standard Food ministry needlessly wary of reform The report of the Shanta Kumar committee on food management contains several cogent recommendations and these have been submitted to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). But it is increasingly unlikely that the report will be accepted in full. In its comments on the report, the Union food ministry has either turned down or expressed reservations on the implementation of many of the reforms-oriented suggestions....

-The Hindu Business Line   Economic Survey says Parliament can pass laws to override States' powers to create such a thing The Budget has proposed the setting up of a national agriculture market. Agriculture in the country is a State subject and thus all the States have set up Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMC) to regulate the marketing of agricultural commodities. Thus, APMCs have been considered an inhibiting factor for establishment of a national...