-Bloomberg When farmers in the scorched village of Horti in Western India were struggling to raise money for a canal, they turned to an unlikely source: a crowdfunding website called FuelADream. The farmers had never heard of crowdfunding before, but a local non-profit group suggested the site and helped them write a proposal that explained how a canal would help feed local families. Within weeks, they had raised Rs 300,000 ($4,490) from...

-PTI New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said his government plans to develop 300 villages across the country as growth centres for the area by creating city like infrastructure, from education and healthcare to digital connectivity. The National Rurban Mission aims to provide better quality of life and employment in villages, he said at the townhall organised to mark the second anniversary of myGov app. There is no dearth of smart cities,...

-The Hindu The state has become exclusively concerned with the interests of globalised capital and the domestic corporate-financial oligarchy aligned with it. The income squeeze on peasants is one consequence Central to the “reforms” introduced in 1991 was not a “retreat of the state” in favour of the “market” as is commonly supposed, but a change in the nature of the state. This change was not necessarily a conscious decision; it was...

-The Hindu India must convert its young population to a competitive advantage, and nutrition and health are foundational to that outcome. The “Global Nutrition Report 2016” once again demonstrates India’s slow overall progress in addressing chronic malnutrition, manifest in stunting (low weight for age), wasting (low weight for height), micronutrient deficiencies and over-weight. Our track record in reducing the proportion of undernourished children over the past decade has been modest at best,...

-The Hindu While the economy’s revival is still a work in progress, higher food prices, especially of pulses, are affecting nutritional intake across India. The government is counting on a good monsoon season to spur growth and cool down the prices of essential food items. Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said on Thursday that the government’s move to raise the minimum support price for pulses is expected to help push up...