-India Today The numbers of marriage by abduction, the tradition is simple: zero-in on a prospective groom, kidnap him and make him tie the nuptial knot at gunpoint, are growing. May 25 was meant to be a memorable day for Julie, a 19-year-old girl in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district, 70 km north of the state capital Patna. A beautician had visited her for makeup and Julie was sparkling in her bridal attire. Her house...

-The Hindu While sanitation schemes in India date back to the British Raj, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) is the latest and by far most ambitious iteration. Launched by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the end of 2014, the Rs.9,000-crore scheme aims to achieve an Open Defecation-Free (ODF) India by constructing 12 million rural household toilets across the country before October 2, 2019 — to coincide with Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birthday. But...

-TheWire.in Farmers are once again wondering which crop will fetch them guaranteed good returns. Nagpur: What do you grow on your farm in the coming season that will fetch you good returns? This is a question millions of peasant farmers, particularly those with small holdings and no protective irrigation, are likely to ask themselves this month, possibly with no answers. They’ll go back to what they have been growing on their fields thus far,...

-The Hindu "India makes its participation contingent on receiving billions of dollars in foreign aid," he said. The Paris climate agreement gives undue advantage to India and China at the cost of U.S interests, President Donald Trump said on Thursday, announcing America’s withdrawal from the pact. “China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So we can’t build the plants, but they can, according to this agreement.  India will...

-The Indian Express Aadhaar doesn’t empower people, only the state Ironically, in the week that the UIDAI revealed its draconian face, serving a legal notice to those who exposed flaws in the Aadhaar eco-system, Ajay Pandey (CEO, UIDAI), wrote, “The critics tend to forget that Aadhaar empowers the people, not the state” (‘Criticisms Without Aadhaar’, IE, May 13). However, government data reveals that Pandey is wrong to believe that “Aadhaar empowers...