-The Hindu Inclusive growth can be possible only in an inclusive society, Bhalchandra Mungekar, president, Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, said on Monday. Scheduled castes and tribes, and minorities constitute a majority among the people below poverty line, accounting for one-third of the country's population. Existence of 40 crore people below poverty line even 60 years after Independence was a cause for immense concern, Dr. Mungekar said, cautioning that the situation was...

-Reuters   Global warming will get worse as agricultural methods accelerate the rate of soil erosion, which depletes the amount of carbon the soil is able to store, a United Nations' Environment Programme report said on Monday. Soil contains huge quantities of carbon in the form of organic matter. which provides nutrients for plant growth and improves soil fertility and water movement. The top metre of soil alone stores around 2,200 billion tonnes of...

The recommendations of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Access to Universal Healthcare are significant because they make explicit the need to contextualise health within the rights. However, the problem with the report is that it does not ask why many of the same recommendations that were made by previous committees have not been implemented. The HLEG neither recognises the problems, constraints and compulsions at the national, state...

Former plant director backs demands for compensation and jobs Agitating residents of villages in the vicinity of the Kaiga atomic power station have got support from unexpected quarters. The former project director of the plant, Paramahamsa Tewari, who helped to set up the installation in the early 1990s, has expressed support for the demands of the ‘struggle committee of villagers within five km of Kaiga plant,' whose protest at Karwar entered the...

-Eastern Panorama   It’s been almost two months since a 6.9 magnitude earthquake left the Himalayan state of Sikkim devastated. Nine families of Ralak village in Tingchim Mangshilla Gram Panchayat in the North District of Sikkim are still living in make shift relief camps with the mothers cuddling their children under blankets to give them comfort and warmth in the cold November nights. As snow has already covered the mountains visible from...