Is the majority of India veg or non-veg? Well, contrary to impression, the land of Gandhi and Buddha is predominantly non-veg. It may well have been majority vegetarian country at some point of time but the new trend is that more and more people are taking to non-vegetarian diets. A new policy paper, “Veg or Non-Veg? India at the Crossroads,” published by Brighter Green, a New York-based public policy action...

-The Economic Times   Vaccines are a true gift of science to humanity. In developing countries, prevention is better than cure. Vaccines have a great track record of safety and efficacy and they are amongst the most cost-effective products, which even the poor have access to due to effective systems of procurement and delivery. India's contribution in the vaccine arena is noteworthy. The primary reason behind the country's vaccine success story is...

-The United Nations Cooperatives and producer organizations will be increasingly important in efforts to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today. “FAO needs strong cooperatives and producer organizations as key partners in the effort to eliminate hunger for some 925 million people, and to respond to the many challenges that face our world today,” said Director-General José Graziano da Silva. He told...

The National Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development, or Nabard, has started lending directly to infrastructure projects out of its own resources for the first time in 30 years, in an attempt to diversify its activities and make itself relevant at a time when the dynamics of the Rural Market are changing.  Essentially a refinance bank till recently, Nabard has created a Rs 1,000-crore special window for lending to build core...

-The Telegraph   The quality of elementary education is falling in rural schools almost two years after education was made a fundamental right in April 2010. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2011, a survey of government and private schools in rural areas conducted by the NGO Pratham, shows a decline in schoolchildren’s “learning outcome levels” compared with the previous year, whether in reading or arithmetic skills.  However, students of private schools have...