-Down to Earth Gourd has sculpted the culture and traditions of rural India for ages A mellifluous tune breaks the silence as I trudge through a forested hill in the Baiga heartland of Dindori district in Madhya Pradesh. At places the music fuses with the gurgling sound of Burner, a tributary of the Narmada river, and becomes even more enchanting. Entranced, I start following the melody and reach a hut where...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Flagging the deadly impact of air and water pollution that annually claims at least nine million lives globally, a new UN report on Wednesday called for urgent action to save humanity from the disastrous consequences of environmental degradation. It warned that cities and regions in Asia, middle-east and Africa could see millions of premature deaths by mid-century if the nations fail to drastically scale up environmental...

-Livemint.com In conversation with Guy Standing, economist at the School Of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Neither the Narendra Modi government nor Rahul Gandhi have gotten minimum income scheme right, he says New Delhi: Income support is the big economic idea of the season. While the ruling BJP government announced a limited money transfer scheme targeted at farmers in the recent interim budget, the Congress has proposed to solve the country’s...

-The Indian Express A recent Democracy Index confirms the paradox of India being the world’s largest electoral wonder, but an increasingly flawed democracy. The Economist Intelligence Unit recently published its 11th report on the “State of Democracy in the World in 2018” titled “Me Too? Political participation, protest and democracy”. The EIU has over seven decades of experience in studying the spectrum of democracies in the world. The index made news...

-The Hindu Opposition parties must make a new anti-torture legislation part of their common programme Custodial torture is global, old and stubborn. Dismemberment was a method of torture practised with vigour in ancient India, crushing-by-elephant-foot another. The Arthashastra prescribes mental torture through swear-words with or without physical assaults. Death by a thousand cuts was ancient China’s speciality. The Tang Code (652 CE) describes judicial torture in detail. Ancient Japanese methods of torture...