-The Telegraph New Delhi: Sections of wildlife biologists have questioned the methodology India has adopted for its tiger census, saying it does not yield results to accurately measure changes in numbers either within a particular region or across the country. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), a non-government partner that was involved in the tiger estIMAtion exercise, said the "double-sampling" approach the Union environment and forests ministry adopted was "not the best currently...

The results of the District Level Household and Facility Survey-4 for the year 2012-13, commonly known as DLHS-4, are out and it shows that among the 18 states and 3 UTs, the percentage of moderate wasting for children below 5 years is highest among Maharashtra (i.e. 34.1%). Similarly, in case of severe wasting and moderate underweight, the situation is worst in Maharashtra as compared to the rest (Please check the...

-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 Panipat (Haryana): Launching the ‘Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao' scheme in Haryana, he said we must fight female foeticide and celebrate the birth of a girl child. The ‘Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao' scheme, which seeks to address gender imbalance and discrimination against the girl child, was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Panipat in Haryana on Thursday. This is the fourth major scheme of his government after Jan Dhan Yojana, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan...

-The Indian Express The NDA government took over from the UPA more than eight months ago but it appears to be deja vu for activists fighting against the constitutionality of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, which empowers police to arrest people for social media posts. Following the previous government's line, the NDA regime has lent its support to the validity of Section 66A, saying the "danger was present and clear"...