-The Business Standard   This report believes in demanding more, and cares little for inflation. It could have kept budgetary constraints in better focus and thrown more light on carbon-reducing innovations Fans of Rakesh Mohan reports will love this leviathan of a report. With 1,220 pages spread over three volumes, the report of the National Transport Policy Development Committee takes at least a week's effort to read. The analysis is in the second...

-The Indian Express   Crops not enough to sustain them, farmers make it work with dairy, fishery, and implement hiring.   Jalandhar: When Harinder Singh of Bhamri village in Kadian block of Gurdaspur district graduated in 2008, his family wanted him to take up postgraduation and go abroad to improve his prospects. Harinder, however, had other ideas - he insisted that he would stay on in the village and follow the family occupation of...

-The Business Standard Since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government decided to put on hold the Aadhaar-based subsidy transfer for domestic liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), questions have been raised about the future of one of Congress' most ambitious initiatives aimed at plugging leakages. Two months after the government move, a pioneering study by economists Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus and Sandip Sukhtankar showed leakages dropped 12 per cent when smart cards were...

-Bloomberg Countries should tackle climate change out of self-interest Climate change is already contributing to sea-level rise and flooding. Droughts and storms are growing more intense. Ice caps are melting; snow cover is diminishing. And the ocean is becoming more acidic. These changes threaten human food supplies, even as the global demand for food increases, and the problems can only be expected to worsen in the decades ahead, as will their ripple...

-Down to Earth Kerala launches an on-line campaign on dalit and adivasi concerns On December 2, 2012, when Andhra Pradesh Assembly passed a legislation to give legal protection to the special funds meant for the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) communities, it was described as historic. The Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan (Planning, Allocation and Utilisation of Financial Resources) Act of 2012, first of its kind...