-Livemint.com Currently water guzzling crops like paddy and sugarcane, which use up to 60% of available irrigation water, are cultivated in some of the most water scarce regions in the country, says the study New Delhi: India needs to realign regional cropping patterns with available water resources to ensure future sustainability of food production, a study released on Thursday said. Currently water guzzling crops like paddy and sugarcane, which use up to...

-TheWire.in The K.R. Rao committee has only recently taken on board the views of civil society stakeholders, raising questions as to whether illegal mining and environmental issues will be properly addressed. New Delhi: A government committee in charge of revamping India’s 2008 mineral policy has belatedly agreed to rectify its industry-skewed composition by roping in several civil society stakeholders as ad-hoc members. However, according to multiple industry and environmental experts, it is unclear...

-The Indian Express Gorakhpur was only the acute manifestation of the chronic malady that ails our health system Outrage is a natural reaction to the terrible tragedy that cruelly crushed the lives of many innocent children in Gorakhpur. However, outrage is a wasted emotion if it is not accompanied by honest introspection to identify all contributory causes and followed by a cluster of corrective actions. The deaths of these children were caused...

-The Financial Express The one irrefutable lesson from MGNREGA, is that once introduced, there will be no going back India is one of the most unequal countries in the world. In terms of Gini coefficient, i.e., measure of income Inequity, India ranks a dismal 135 out of 187 countries. This means that most of the prosperity that an increasingly economically liberalised India is seeing, belongs primarily to the top-income percentiles. One in...

-The Indian Express Higher education in India is failing. Overhauling the system can salvage it Let me start with a blunt statement: India’s higher education is in general a decrepit, dilapidated system, it’s afflicted by a deep malaise. The National Knowledge Commission—Report to the Nation (2006-9) put it only a bit more mildly: “There is a quiet crisis in higher education in India which runs deep”. Three widely acknowledged criteria for judging an...