-The Times of India KANNUR: Kerala has lost huge expanses of paddy fields in the past few decades and we have just around 2.75 lakh hectares of paddy field left in the state compared to over nine lakh hectares thirty years back thus resulting in major reduction in paddy production, according to experts. "Though we require over 40 lakh tonnes of rice per year today, our production is just six lakh tonnes...

-The Hindu Election Commission data show that 2.3 crore people in the 18-19 age bracket have been enrolled to vote, out of a total electorate of 81.5 crore This Lok Sabha election is likely to reflect the peak of India's electoral demographic dividend with 10% of voters likely to be first-time voters, a combination of electoral and demographic data shows. As fertility begins to decline - faster in the south than in...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Fertilizer minister Srikant Jena may keep claiming that annually 30 lakh tonne of highly subsidized urea for agriculture is being smuggled to chemical factories, but the government says states have reported only 24 such cases since 2010-11. Jena had recently said at a conference of Indian Fertilizer Association (IFA) that there are serious signs of mismanagement in an information technology-driven era when targeted farmers can be...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The draft national policy on domestic workers, awaiting the Union Cabinet's nod, must be approved at the earliest. Activists and NGOs echoed this view at a panel discussion on Wednesday. "A national policy is the first step towards ensuring rights for domestic workers. It is also the first step before legislation is enacted. But despite our persistent efforts, progress is so slow," said Varghese Theckanath, convenor,...

-The Hindu Proposing a new "empowerment line" that aims to measure the minimum economic cost for a household to fulfil eight most basic needs, a global research organisation has estimated that 680 million Indians, or 56 per cent of the population, lacks the means to meet their essential needs. Health care, drinking water and sanitation between them account for nearly 40 per cent of the gap between their current status and the...