-The Economic Times WASHINGTON: As India gears up to provide food security cover to 67% of its population, a report compiled by Global Development Network says that the challenges to food security and rural livelihood is fast growing not only in India but in entire South Asia. The report says that the problem can be addressed by investment in agriculture and rural livelihoods on a priority basis. "Financial investment in agriculture research...

-The Times of India The inflation rate slowed to a more than three-year low of 5.96% in March on the back of softening vegetable, fruits and milk prices, brightening the prospect of an interest rate cut by RBI while bringing relief for the politically beleaguered government. Lower interest rates would provide relief to thousands of borrowers reeling under the burden of high equated monthly installments ( EMIs) on their home loans. Data released...

-The Hindu KRISHNAGIRI: Over 300 Dalit families of Deveerahalli Village, of Kudimenahalli Panchayat, in Krishnagiri district allege that they are being denied work by intermediate castes of the village and of six other nearby villages. The reason behind this, they say, is that a Dalit youth in their area had fallen in love with a girl of an intermediate caste from Sathinayakkanpatti under Damodarahalli Panchayat. The girl is back with her parents...

-Bloomberg The corpse of Indian farmer Bengali Singh burned to ash atop a blazing funeral pyre on the banks of the river Ganges in 2006. Five years later, the dead man was recorded as being paid by India's $33 billion rural jobs program to dig an irrigation canal in Jharkhand state. Officials in his village and the surrounding region used at least 500 identities, including those of Singh, a disabled child of...

-The Economic Times The government wants to train the rural youth to take up manufacturing jobs, but an official survey has shown that nearly a fifth of youth in the countryside enrolled for vocational training opted to learn driving or become car mechanics in the hope of earning a decent salary in cities. Computer training was the second-most desired skill among the rural youth, shows a report based on the National Sample...