-Livemint.com The Union government has cut the prices of genetically-modified cotton seeds and slashed royalty fees by 74% The Union government’s decision to cut the prices of genetically-modified (GM) cotton seeds, popularly known as Bt cotton, and slash royalty fees, will have a positive impact on cotton farming in Maharashtra, India’s top state in terms of area under cotton cultivation. The Maharashtra government’s agriculture officials, cotton growers and officials at the Nagpur-based...

-Hindustan Times Jhabua: Bhil tribes people in Madhya Pradesh’s Jhabua and Alirajpur districts have revived their age-old tradition “halma” to conserve environment. Bhil tribes people said the water level and forest cover in the two districts are decreasing and if they do not conserve the natural resources then the next generation will suffer. More than 85% people in the two districts are tribal; most of them are farmers and daily wage workers. Alirajpur...

-Press Release from Delhi Pension Parishad Activists from seven major campaigns stated unequivocally that the Union Budget for 2016-17 far from ‘Transforming India’, as claimed by the Finance Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley, is neglecting the interests of farmers, the poor and vulnerable both in nominal and real terms and subjecting every life-affirming program to severe  budget cuts. Activists from seven major campaigns such as the Right to Food Campaign , the...

-The Hindu Clark made a significant pitch for all countries that had not made domestic abuse and marital rape criminal offences to do so at the earliest. Just days after Minister of Women and Child welfare Maneka Gandhi submitted in parliament that the government wouldn’t criminalise “marital rape”, a top UN official said that the issue is one of consent, not culture, suggesting that India would be in contravention of the Sustainable...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: International humanitarian agency Medecins Sans Frontieres has filed an application to block US pharmaceutical company Pfizer from obtaining a patent in India for a vaccine against pneumonia and allow Indian vaccine manufacturers to make low-cost versions. The patent opposition moved by MSF has claimed that Pfizer's patent application, which describes methods of conjugating 13 serotypes (strains) of the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae into a single carrier vaccine, does not...