Almost one in every five suicides in the world is committed by self-poisoning with pesticide, which mostly occur in rural, agricultural areas of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), states a new publication entitled 'Preventing Suicide: A resource for pesticide registrars and regulators'. Published jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the booklet says that the adoption of green revolution technology...

-The Hindu The automobile industry is in the grip of an unprecedented crisis. The downturn in the economy has led to a dip in production and huge job losses across the country. July was a difficult month for 28-year-old Rohit Rana. Since 2012, Rana had been employed in a diesel machine shop at Maruti Suzuki’s Gurugram plant in Haryana. As the eldest of three siblings, it became Rana’s responsibility to take care...

-The Telegraph Can issuing work permits and settling people outside Assam resolve the problem temporarily? In his Outlook article, (retired Union Cabinet secretary and a long-time North-east hand at the Centre) G.K. Pillai offered a temporary arrangement of granting ‘a five-year work permit’ to those not included in the final NRC, basically to maintain status quo, ‘to calm things down and allow a range of policy options to be developed carefully over...

-The Telegraph "The government has miserably failed to stimulate the domestic economy. It has spent less and less on public education, healthcare and infrastructure because of its erroneous policy" The Modi government has an ambitious plan to create a $5-trillion economy in the next five years — but all data points are heavily stacked against it. The economy is floundering and the Reserve Bank of India has already trimmed its growth forecast...

-Hindustan Times The nature-development equilibrium is broken, leading to climate disasters. At least 100 people have died in floods in three states in peninsular India — Kerala, Karnataka, and Maharashtra — in August due to monsoon floods. There are several reasons, as reported in a series of articles in Hindustan Times, for the havoc and deaths, such as changes in land-use patterns, excessive quarrying and unscientific plantations (Kerala), poor management of dams...