-IANS The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has issued guidelines for developing and maintaining kitchen gardens in all schools, both in urban and rural areas. New Delhi: All schools have been asked to set up a kitchen garden and instructions to this effect have been issued by the Centre to all the states and union territories, an official said on Friday. The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has issued guidelines...

-The Indian Express 'Developing Asia' refers to a group of 45 countries that are members of the ADB The economic outlook update released by the Asian Development Bank last week highlighted that the number of urban inhabitants in ‘Developing Asia’ has increased “almost five-fold since 1970”. The report, tracking World Urbanisation Prospects data, also states that the two-thirds of the nearly 1.5 billion additional city dwellers in the region belonged from...

-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...

Almost one in every five suicides in the world is committed by self-poisoning with pesticide, which mostly occur in rural, agricultural areas of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), states a new publication entitled 'Preventing Suicide: A resource for pesticide registrars and regulators'. Published jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the booklet says that the adoption of green revolution technology...

-The Indian Express India’s employment crisis calls for more government expenditure in education, adequate training. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his recent Independence Day speech, said, “We need to worry about population explosion”. These words stand in stark contrast to his previous references to India’s demographic dividend where the country’s population was seen as an asset. This shift reflects a new awareness, according to which demography brings a dividend only if...