-The New Indian Express Madras High Court in August gave permission for the project based on a  submission by Public Works Department that the area has plenty of groundwater. CHENNAI: Many localities have permanently lost their groundwater source due to excessive extraction of water to meet the city’s growing needs. Residents of Madambakkam, a residential area in south Chennai, are worried whether their case too will end up the same. Madambakkam panchayat...

-The Hindu Business Line Noted Gandhian economist Dr Sudarshan Iyengar surveys the distressed agricultural landscape, pinpoints its weaknesses, and prescribes solutions with their roots in Gandhian agronomics. Edited excerpts from an interview to BusinessLine: * Given the agrarian crisis in India today, how relevant are Gandhi's economic principles based on the village economy, and equitable distribution of resources? They are relevant in the context of Gandhi's view of gram swaraj (village self-rule), which...

-The Telegraph Around 350 families have refused to vacate apartments constructed in violation of Coastal Regulatory Zone rules Bangalore: Politicians of all hues are making a beeline to a clutch of plush waterfront apartments in Kerala as the clock ticks on a demolition deadline set by the Supreme Court. The issue has raised wider questions: whether a state government that insisted on enforcing in letter and spirit a court order that lifted a...

-Livemint.com With sliding incomes, rural households are struggling to stay afloat and are curtailing consumption of essential goods Vidisha/ New Delhi: Ram Babu, who runs a hole-in-the-wall grocery store in Nateran village nestled deep inside Madhya Pradesh’s Vidisha district, doubles up as a daily wager. However, with villagers cutting on small purchases, sales in his shop are down. Moreover, landless households dependent on wage labour are unable to find work—a day of...

  In the month of June this year, encephalitis related deaths in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district grabbed the headlines. Actually, most of the children, who were admitted or died at Shri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH), hailed from East Champaran, Vaishali, Sitamarhi and Samastipur apart from Muzaffarpur. Unfortunately, till recently official data on the number of cases and deaths related to Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) was unavailable for...