-The Times of India MUMBAI: Extreme weepiness and severe melancholy are not the only calling cards of depression, a serious mental disorder that roughly affects 10% of the population. Doctors say the symptoms could be subtler or of a lower degree - a sudden habit of rash driving, making mean observations or even showing perpetual irritability. As it emerges that Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who reportedly crashed a plane into the French...

-The Indian Express The budget aims at economic growth and social protection. This is welcome. So are provisions for financial inclusion, housing, water, sanitation and rural electrification. But there are also substantial cuts in crucial social sectors and key omissions that are likely to undermine its stated economic objectives. Consider agriculture, environment and women. First, double-digit growth or poverty reduction is unlikely without strong, sustained agricultural growth. In 2014-15, agriculture grew at...

-The Hindu The implementation of the National Food Security Act is mired in apathy and confusion. A grave injustice is being done to millions of people who live on the margin of subsistence. It is not too late to remove the roadblocks, but this requires a sense of urgency An odd silence has surrounded the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in the last few months - as if food insecurity were a...

-The Hindu Business Line Though migration of labour from the east has helped revive the plantations in southern India, questions remain on the long-term implications, Vishwanath Kulkarni reports As the harvest season starts in Coorg, Karnataka, coffee planter MC Kariappa has a lot of issues to contend with - productivity, weather and, the biggest worry of all in recent times, paucity of labourers. So when a dozen labourers from Assam landed at...

-The Hindu Economic diversification in rural India, involving the emergence and growth of non-agricultural activities, is considered an important means of increasing employment and per capita incomes, and improving standards of living. However, non-agricultural activities themselves are of various kinds differing in terms of productivity and the returns they yield. So while the development of some activities may point to rural dynamism, many others exist and grow because of the distress-driven...