The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is facilitating the visits of representatives from several developing countries to witness India's amazing election exercise under South-South cooperation. Representatives from Lesotho, Nigeria, Malaysia and Namibia are already in India and have visited polling booths and electoral offices in various states of India including West Bengal and Karnataka. For inquiries or interviews, please contact Ms. Nandita Surendran-UNDP, phone no. +919810084776, Email: nandita.surendran@undp.org. Journalists and media...

-The Telegraph   Paddy may not be the climate culprit that the world is making it out to be Agricultural scientist Pratap Bhattacharyya may have found a remarkable piece of evidence that absolves swathes of paddy fields stretching over millions of hectares of a climate crime. On the contrary, he believes that rice is doing its bit for the environment. A study by Bhattacharyya and his colleagues at the Cuttack-based Central Rice Research Institute...

-Tehelka     Survival International is an NGO that works for the welfare of indigenous tribal populations all over the world. Recently, it launched the Proud, Not Primitive campaign in India. Survival’s press officer Alice Bayer was in India to spread the word. Speaking to G Vishnu, she spells out what is wrong with the development versus tribal rights debate.  Edited Excerpts from an Interview * Tell us about the Proud, Not Primitive campaign? Government...

-The New York Times   As politicians scramble for India's 815 million votes in the most expensive and closely contested general election in the nation's history, an unexpected protest is rumbling from what was once one of the country's most placid voter blocs: its farmers. The protest is inflamed by rising attention to the shocking suicide rate on India's hardscrabble farms. Since 1995, more than 290,000 farmers have killed themselves. Though that figure,...

-Tehelka   It is time India had a Good Samaritan law  It has been more than a year since the Nirbhaya rape case stirred the nation. Apart from the brutality inflicted upon the victim what else became a stigma for our society was the fact that no one came to the victim's rescue when the two were lying on the street naked and grievously injured. Of course people did cross them in luxurious...