-The Times of India DEHRADUN: A report on single-teacher schools across the country, tabled in Parliament on Monday, has thrown up some alarming statistics on the education scenario in India. A solitary teacher is running the show in as many as 1,05,630 government elementary and secondary schools in the country, with MP emerging as the worst state where 17,874 of the institutions have just one teacher each. UP has the second-highest number...

-The Indian Express Floods and water-logging show that urban planners have paid scant respect to hydrology Rains have been good this monsoon season so far. But instead of welcoming the bounty, urban India seems to be wallowing in misery. Guwahati is flooded. People in Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai and Hyderabad are beset with water-logged streets and traffic snarls. Even half an hour of rainfall is enough to make a lot of places go...

-Scroll.in In the last ten years, Tamil Nadu has seen households' debt go out of control. Why? G Venkatasubramanian trots out some astonishing numbers. Over the last 15 years, he and his fellow researchers at Pondicherry's French Institute have been studying debt bondage among families in 20 villages in Tamil Nadu. Half of these settlements are in the coastal district of Cuddalore, and the others are in the adjoining district of Villupuram. Their study...

-The Indian Express Price and technology-led incentives alone will not help boost pulses and oilseeds production in the country. Indian agriculture is governed by an impossible trinity or “trilemma” that requires it to meet three simultaneous objectives — global competitiveness, social inclusiveness and environmental sustainability — each often at odds with the other two. Official policy has largely tilted towards supporting the first two goals, with token, if not grudging, acknowledgement of...

Two back-to-back reports that shed light on the status of MGNREGA implementation in the country, have been released recently from the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD). A review of MGNREGA implementation in 8 different states of India by a team of experts during the month of May this year reveals that in many of the drought affected districts, the Gram Panchayats have no work to offer under the programme. (Please click...