-The Hindu Suicides decrease with increasing farm size and yield, but increase with the area under Bt Cotton’. The cultivation of Bt cotton, a genetically modified, insect-resistant cotton variety, is a risky affair for Indian farMers practising rain-fed agriculture, according to a latest study published by California-based agricultural scientists in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe. Annual suicide rates of farMers in rain-fed areas are directly related to increase in Bt cotton adoption, say...

-The Times of India REHUA LALGANJ (Pratapgarh): It was not just straitened financial circumstances but also the villagers' casteist mindset that the Saroj brothers fought along their way to achieving their IIT dream. Caste biases run so deep here that even as they returned home feted by chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday, stones were thrown at their house. "There were five or six stones thrown at our home. We informed the...

-The Times of India BAREILLY: A Mere year after the country was declared polio free, more than 200 samples have tested positive to polio-like symptoms from tehsils here, sending alarm bells ringing in the health department. The samples, from Baheri, Meergunj, Faridpur and Nawabgunj among other tehsils, have been sent to the central laboratory in Mumbai for further testing. Officials have also been informed that the children, between the ages of 5...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Tweaks the home ministry has proposed to rules governing foreign funding for NGOs will leave these organisations at the Mercy of the government's unilateral interpretations of what violates an undefined idea of "national interest", social activists have said. More than the suggested new rules themselves, put up on the ministry website for feedback yesterday, it's the mandatory declaration proposed for NGOs at the end that critics have termed...

-The Wire Even as it claims to be fighting the perception that it is anti-poor, the Modi government has just dealt a big blow to the poorest of the poor: the planned phasing out of the Antyodaya programme under the Targeted Public Distribution System (Control) Order 2015. This move is unjust and illegal. Antyodaya is a programme of social support for destitute households. It involves the provision of 35 kg of foodgrains...