-Economic and Political Weekly   The emphasis on use of digital technologies to bridge the "rural-urban gap" in the union budget is limited to high talk and minimal allocations. The need for a more comprehensive and peoples' participation-oriented rural action plan should have been the focus while setting sectoral allocations, but that is not to be in this mid-year budget. Vipul Mudgal (vipulmudgal@gmail.com) heads the Inclusive Media for Change project at the Centre...

-The Deccan Herald The poverty line continues to be a conundrum. The fixing of the poverty line at Rs 47 for urban areas and Rs. 32 in rural areas per capita per day by the latest Rangarajan committee report, based on a person or family's spending per day (called ‘consumption expenditure') has again drawn vociferous criticism. All these years, this all important line has not been fixed in a rational manner, rendering...

-The Pioneer The Government must establish research & development and innovation centres at the village level, which can be instrumental in evolving solutions for the actual problems being faced on day-to-day basis by the farming community The agriculture sector today faces multiple problems, thanks to insufficient rainfall, falling crop productivity and failures coupled with low profitability. Climate change, air pollution, frequent droughts and other adversities have brought the farmers to their knees,...

-The Hindustan Times That India's food chain is heavily contaminated is well known. Even then the latest study by the Centre for Science and Environment, a public interest research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, on the growing antibiotic resistance in humans, thanks to indiscriminate use of antibiotics in poultry industry is frightening. The report, which was released on Wednesday, claims that Indians are developing resistance to antibiotics and so...

-The Indian Express Human Development Report: Spending 4% of GDP can ensure social security net. India may have little to feel proud about in the findings of UNDP's Human Development Report for 2014, but the good news is that with ongoing rural employment and school education programmes and some serious discussions on universal healthcare over the last couple of years, it is moving in the right direction. The report gives a six-point...