-Hindustan Times Bhopal/Sagar: When 39-year-old Ram Dwivedi shot himself with a rifle in Uttar Pradesh’s water-starved Banda district a few months ago, it came as a shock even to local residents in the drought-ravaged Bundelkhand region. In the past few years, most people who committed suicide in the area were either tenants or small-time farmers. But despite having 20 acres of land, Dwivedi couldn’t generate enough income to sustain his six-member family. Hit...

-Hindustan Times Wheat, the country’s winter staple, has hit hurdles, with farmers unable to sow the normal area and instances of a dreaded fungus attack being reported from some parts of Punjab and Haryana, raising concerns of a lower output. Summer foodgrain output fell 1.7% at 124.05 million tonne, according to the government’s first of the four quarterly estimates due to a crippling back-to-back drought. This has hurt farm incomes, which support...

-Hindustan Times The recently released census data on India’s youth unemployment has only confirmed what some experts have been cautioning about. Nearly one in every four or 24% of those between 20 and 24 years of age are looking for jobs. Given the size of India’s population, this translates into millions of youth who join the army of job hopefuls every year. This raises some serious questions. How many workers will...

-Hindustan Times The Chennai floods have thrown up some fundamental flaws in our system of urban planning. Across India, city after city has experienced floods, while some others live with the fear of impending disasters. In Mumbai, flooding was caused by wrong developments at the Bandra estuary and negligence along the Mithi river, and in Uttarakhand the disaster was caused by unplanned regional development and the unholy nexus between the land...

-Hindustan Times The prospect of the youngest offender in the Delhi gang rape case walking free has stirred public opinion in recent weeks, with a string of protests and the parents of the victim urging authorities to detain the convict. Parliament is expected to take up amendments to the juvenile justice bill on Tuesday, a rare political response to public anger over the case, but the outrage has helped mask two crucial...