-PTI COIMBATORE: Trade estimates suggest that the production will be around 400 lakh bales of 170 kg each, taking India to the first position. With domestic trade estimating cotton production at around 400 lakh bales, India is expected to emerge as the largest cotton producer in the world in 2015-16. Cotton output in all major producing countries in the year, barring India, has been anticipated to be lower than the previous season. As a...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A Delhi government notification has paved the way for juvenile offenders and abandoned or surrendered children in the capital to get birth certificates if they lack one. The move, expected to be replicated across the country, will give lakhs of invisible children an official identity and make it easier for them to get into school and secure government welfare and documents, such as scholarships, passports and PAN cards. Only...

-IPA Service Soya bean damage leads to more woes There was a time when Madhya Pradesh was known as "Soya Pradesh". But from this year Madhya Pradesh will cease to be so. Similarly Madhya Pradesh was a leading state for production of all types of pulses. But at present the state is facing severe scarcity of Pulses. Soya crops have been ruined, this fact has been accepted by the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh...

-Livemint.com The shortfall in pulse production is expected to be around 2 million tonnes this year Under siege over sky-rocketing pulse prices, especially when the crucial Bihar elections are underway, the Centre initially blamed the state governments for the situation at hand for failing to crack down on hoarders. According to news Reports, more than 80,000 tonnes of pulses have been recovered in raids across states in the last week or...

-The Hoot A decade of RTI, Part II---How many Indians are using their right to information? Studies suggest that the figure of users has yet to cross one per cent of the population in a given year, but there could be substantial under-reporting. More than eight million Right to Information applications are being made now, 10 years after the law was introduced. That’s the figure that was given by Aruna Roy of...