-Livemint.com Farmers’ welfare is a multi-dimensional issue, with the farm ministry playing a small but significant role Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement to rename the ministry of agriculture to ministry of agriculture and farmers’ welfare may be symbolic, but is at the least a recognition of the stress in rural economy. The stress, particularly in the farming sector, is now all too obvious with the increase in suicides being reported in many...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Records of death penalty convicts who have been executed since independence have gone missing from many prisons with the National Law University (NLU), conducting a first of its kind study, able to confirm data related to 755 executions since 1947. "Some prison authorities have written to us that either the records have been lost or destroyed by termites," NLU director Anup Surendranath told TOI, who is...

-The Hindu The Union government has denied plans to develop a DNA database of citizens, similar to the biometric database of Aadhaar, as feared by many when the Human DNA Profiling Bill was introduced in the Monsoon Session of Parliament. In a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Y.S. Chowdary said the government did not propose to establish a DNA databank of...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The human DNA profiling Bill, as recommended by an official expert committee, has controversial clauses dealing with "issues relating to pedigree" and introducing an intrusive mode of collecting samples from living persons called "intimate forensic procedure". This procedure detailed in the draft Bill due to be introduced in the current session of Parliament involves collection of "intimate body samples" of living persons from "the genital or...

-Down to Earth After two budgets and Rs 5,300 crore in funding, the Centre's micro irrigation project that promises water to every farmland is not even close to a roll-out The news of deficit monsoons this year has once again left the Centre worried. A concerned prime minister chaired a high-level meeting on June 8 where he emphasised the need to quickly augment the irrigation capacity of the country. But he conveniently...