-The Hindu Every effort needs to be made to reform MGNREGA, as it has been both a major success and a huge failure. The best way for this is to study carefully the conditions that made it a success and also to undertake a diagnostics of its failures An impression has gained ground in recent weeks that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre is inimical to the Mahatma Gandhi...

-Deccan Herald In accordance with a new agroecology initiative within the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, by using the agroecological methods, small farmers are key to feeding the world, Nafeez Ahmed notes. Modern industrial agricultural methods can no longer feed the world, due to the impacts of overlapping environmental and ecological crises linked to land, water and resource availability. The stark warning comes from the new United Nations Special Rapporteur on the...

-Hard News Floods in Kashmir could have been managed better if there was a reliable early warning system The first fortnight of September saw Jammu and Kashmir being ravaged by severe flash floods. But, according to the snatches of news we got, the monsoon was below average in the state until the last week of August. Thereafter, four days of incessant rain in the Valley and in Jammu made almost all the...

-The Week Shambhu Kumar, 8, quite liked his job as a domestic help in a small town in Assam. He had to mind two children nearly his age, keep an eye on the ducks and be available for chores all day. It wasn't too hard, and he was well fed, too, though he missed his grandmother, a tea garden labourer. One day, some women from the state education department came to the...

-The New Indian Express Knocks chief secy's door saying they have been suffering without help for three years PUDUCHERRY (Tamil Nadu): The Puducherry Certified Seed Producers Welfare Association has petitioned the Chief Secretary Chetan B Sanghi, seeking his intervention in the functioning of the Perunthalaivar Kamarajar Krishi Vigyan Kendra (PKKVK), a centre to serve farmers, at Iyankuttipalayam. In a memorandum to the Chief Secretary on Saturday a copy of which was released to...