-The Times of India GURUGRAM: Last year, Haryana's sex ratio (the number of girls per 1,000 boys) touched 900. In the first quarter of this year, it galloped to 935. The number for March 2017 was still higher, 950. To put these numbers in perspective, the national sex ratio for children in the 2011 Census was 919. In Haryana, the number stood at 834. There is now suspicion that the remarkable surge...

-Business Standard Activists, others question yield and bio-safety data; GM mustard can improve yields by 25-30% After many ifs and buts, the commercial release of genetically modified (GM) mustard seems to have reached a decisive phase after the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) recommended on Thursday that it be allowed.   The ministry of environment and forests will now decide on whether this herbicide-tolerant variety can become the first GM food crop to be...

-PTI Activists claim the facilities existed only on paper Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh): Toilets have gone “missing” from a house in a Chhattisgarh village and a woman and her daughter want the police to trace them fast. The women filed a written complaint with the police last week after they found out that the two toilets, proposed under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, were shown in documents as already having been constructed with funds released for...

-The Indian Express Six months on, there appears little justification for demonetisation in theories of politics, governance. Demonetisation has been evaluated through multiple dimensions — political, economic, constitutional, legal — and the role of the institutions involved. However, what were the philosophical underpinnings for “the most sweeping change in currency policy that has occurred anywhere in the world in decades”? One might think demonetisation was from the utilitarian school (given the rhetoric around...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Acknowledging that women are a disadvantaged section despite comprising nearly half of the population of the country, the Centre is considering lowering income tax for single women, introducing Aadhaar-linked health cards for free basic health check-ups for women and cashless medical service for those who are pregnant. A national policy for women, framed by a group of ministers headed by external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, is...