-The Hindu Business Line In Sirsa, Haryana’s westernmost district, the fight to end female foeticide includes tip-offs, thrilling chases and decoys “Chhori hai ! Kal marna tha , aaj mar gayi” (It’s a girl! She’ll have to die tomorrow, she died today). Deputy civil surgeon Viresh Bhushan’s face twists into a grimace as he recalls the incident at Sirsa’s Civil Hospital four years ago. A grandmother in her fifties had strangled to...

-DNA Taking up the gauntlet against alarming malnutrition in India, the Indian Council of Medical Research has announced a new comprehensive national nutrition survey, unlike any done before. This survey aims to unite the efforts and data of all scattered surveys that have happened in the country, the Rapid Action Survey of Children (RSoC), the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) for example,and bring on board as equal stakeholders the union ministries of...

-The Hindu Rather than criminalising bribegivers, the objective of combating coercive corruption would be achieved if the government puts in place a grievance redress mechanism The Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA), the key legislation which defines what constitutes corruption and prescribes penalties for corruption-related offences, is set to be amended by Parliament. The proposed Bill, now before a select committee of the Rajya Sabha, includes several contentious amendments that are likely to...

-The Indian Express Over-regulation by government once again ensures that injustice is done to UP’s sugarcane farmers. The story of Uttar Pradesh’s sugarcane farmers facing distress due to non-payment of dues by the sugar mills is not a new one. Yet again, as against the promised payment of Rs 17,972 crore, at the state advised price (SAP) of Rs 280 per quintal, farmers have received just Rs 11,268 crore from the UP...

-Livemint.com Pulses use less water per unit crop and also address hidden hunger The severe drought across India should hopefully help focus attention on the overuse of water in agriculture. A data analysis by Roshan Kishore in this newspaper last week showed that the average water footprint for five major crops—rice, wheat, maize, sugarcane and cotton—is far higher than global averages. At the root of the problem is a policy framework that...