-The Hindu Business Line Faced with inadequate returns, a significant chunk of farmers in the country are ready to quit farming if they get alternative job opportunities in urban areas, says a nation-wide study commissioned by Bharat Krishak Samaj and conducted by CSDS. The study - Report on the State of Indian Farmer - reveals some alarming facts, with 47 per cent of those surveyed believing that the overall condition of...

-The Business Standard Chandigarh: Worried over diminishing returns from small holdings in the state, young and educated farmers in Punjab with an entrepreneurial streak are venturing into commercial dairy farming. The farmers say that a commercial dairy farm gives them high returns compared with conventional agriculture on small land-holdings, which is proving unsustainable. There are about 6,000 progressive dairy farmers in Punjab and the state has more such farmers than any other...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Literacy is still a distant dream for vulnerable young women. Going at the present pace of development, India will take at least another 56 years to achieve female youth literacy. A serious gender imbalance in global education has left over 100 million young women in low and lower middle income countries unable to read a single sentence, and will prevent half of the 31 million girls...

-Frontline Many of the targets of U.N. Millennium Development Goals may remain unachieved by India, if one goes by the latest progress report. In his keynote speech at the Jaipur Literary Festival held in January, Professor Amartya Sen highlighted the vast disparities of development in India. Whereas in some States such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala the human development indices are on a par with many European nations, many States have...

-Live Mint Mint examines why millions of women are missing from farms, factories, colleges, and offices in India, which has one of the lowest ratios of working women in the world Mumbai: Every monsoon, minivans ferrying women labourers can be seen making their way from the small sleepy town of Wardha to Waifad village, 18 kilometres away. Urban workers from Wardha have come to occupy an integral part of Waifad's farm...