-Down to Earth India ranked 19th among 45 developing countries assessed by UK-based organisation India has made quite some progress in countering hunger and under-nutrition in the past two years but Nepal and Bangladesh have done better and have shown serious commitment through political will, says the Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index (HANCI) report, 2013. The annual HANCI report, prepared by non-profit Institute of Development Studies and International Food Policy Research Institute funded...

-Deccan Herald The National Crime Records Bureau's data for 2013 is out, and farm suicides are pegged at 11,772 -- not very different from the earlier years.Many activists point out how these figures are in fact under-reported. In a country where the cultivators' numbers are plummeting drastically as the Census 2011 data shows, this unabated trend of farm suicides is something that any government should take note of. The central aspect to this...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: In a move that has surprised and shaken the industry, prices of widely-used expensive anti-diabetic and cardiac medicines will reduce by as much as 35% over the next few weeks, with the drug pricing regulator, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), deciding to bring them under price control. In a rare invocation of a lesser-used provision in the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO), NPPA has fixed the prices...

-Economic and Political Weekly State intervention in India to expand financial inclusion to rural areas has had an interesting history. It has moved away from building state-led institutions to setting policy that pushed financial inclusion through non-state agencies as well. While identity, de-duplication, and authentication were issues that affected the pace of financial inclusion, they were not the most significant problems to be fixed. By allowing the Aadhaar project to set...

-Deccan Chronicle New Delhi: With a drought-like situation looming large and food prices remaining high, the Union government on Thursday announced various agri-progra-mmes with an outlay of about Rs 7,500 crore to improve irrigation, soil health, research activities besides promising steps to revamp mandis.   Union finance minister Arun Jaitley said that the Centre will provide cheaper foodgrains through ration shops even if there is marginal decline in farm production due to inadequate...