-The Hindu Chennai: Depression is reported to be one of the significant health problems facing the employees of India Inc, says a report of Assocham. Demanding schedules, high stress levels and performance-linked perquisites are having a toll on the health of corporate India's employees. Obesity is the second life style disease they are facing. High blood pressure and diabetes are the third and fourth major diseases, respectively. "Nearly 42.5 per cent of employees...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Extreme weepiness and severe melancholy are not the only calling cards of depression, a serious mental disorder that roughly affects 10% of the population. Doctors say the symptoms could be subtler or of a lower degree - a sudden habit of rash driving, making mean observations or even showing perpetual irritability. As it emerges that Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who reportedly crashed a plane into the French...

-Kafila.org With depressing regularity, the newspapers have been reporting farmers' suicides in many states. Recently, P Sainath wrote on BBC that around 296,438 farmers have committed suicide since 1995. He also mentions that cash crop cultivators of cotton, sugar cane, vanilla, pepper, groundnut etc account for the bulk of those suicides. According to a PIL heard by the Supreme Court in December 2014, around 3146 farmers in Maharashtra have committed suicide...

-The Hindu They are gripped by fear of losing valuable lands, say villagers PENUMAKA (GUNTUR District/ Karnataka): The colourful rangoli patterns are missing, there is no smell of delicacies in their houses and the warmth and bonhomie which one sees on the eve of harvest festival are missing in villages resisting land-pooling. For families, living on fertile lands, tilling them and selling the produce at Vijayawada and other towns has been a way...

-Down to Earth The primary health centre (PHC) at Ajara block in Maharashtra's Kolhapur district would handle just eight childbirth cases a year till 2011. Today, it handles over 125 such cases in a year. The health centre became efficient because of a Central government scheme that empowers communities to monitor public health services. In 2010, the residents participated in a jan sunwai (public hearing) session, in which they told senior...