Though organic farming has its own advantages, depending solely on it will not help augment food requirements of the country, said director general of ICAR S Ayyappan. “Organic manures can augment the microbial activity, prevent environmental deterioration and restore soil health. It can reduce the chemical load in soil and farm produce. But at this juncture, when quantum of food is close to deficit, one cannot truly identify with the sole...

Right to Information (RTI) activist Vijay Kumbhar has demanded that there should be some restriction on supply of free information to the applicants belonging to below poverty line (BPL). As per RTI Act, 2005, section 7, the applicant would pay the fee as prescribed for information to be provided in printed or in electronic format. But no such fee shall be charged from the persons who are below poverty line (BPL). Kumbhar...

Private unaided schools do not seem too upbeat about implementation of the new Right To Education. The School Action Committee (SAC) – an umbrella body of four school associations in the city – made it clear on Thursday that the burden of accommodating 25%EWS students for free was "too much" for private schools. They said the schools would now be forced to increase fee for other students. SAC is also...

At its core, healthcare is essentially a public service. So its demand and supply cannot be left to the market and can't be limited to care rendered or financed by public expenditure, but must also include incentives and disincentives for care paid for by citizens. India's healthcare challenges are aggravated by lack of overall coverage of health insurance services. Although the government and some private employers provide health protection, the...

For some reason, governments - as well as the development ''industry'' as a whole - have always had a tendency to look for universal panaceas, particular silver bullets that will solve all or most of their implementation problems and somehow achieve the development project for them. The latest such initiative bullet that seems to have been accepted as a silver bullet is the Unique Identification Project, which is now seen...