-The Hindu Jaipur: The nondescript Jasauti village in Pahari tehsil of Bharatpur district, situated at the Rajasthan-Haryana border, has emerged as the "Bhindi Gaon" (village of lady's fingers), sending over a dozen vehicles with the popular vegetable everyday for six months in a year to Gurgaon and Delhi. Eighty per cent of agriculturists in the village are engaged in the farming of lady's fingers. The transformation in both the social and...

-The Business Standard The latest suicide in Vidarbha underlines the need for flexible loan repayment norms for farmers Is it better to give compensation to dead farmers, or to provide loans and insurance to those who are alive? In the case of a majority of cotton farmers in Maharashtra, who are struggling against shrinking land size, production costs and debts, there is neither credit or insurance when alive nor compensation on death. Farmers caught...

-The Business Standard Why government policy and jobless growth have let inequality worsen in recent times The Forbes list of billionaires features 55 Indians in 2013. The estimated net worth of only the top ten is $102.1 billion or approximately 5.5 per cent of India's gross domestic product. Paradoxically, every third poor person and every second malnourished child in the world is also an Indian. India also adds 7.5 million babies with...

-Stanford Social Innovation Review Looked at from the perspective of the political right, and the left, and the center, the proposed law making CSR mandatory is a really bad idea. Companies all over the world are under increasing pressure to demonstrate that they are responsible citizens, with about 70 percent of large companies in Europe and the Americas reporting on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Despite this, the very concept...

-The United Nations United Nations independent experts today called on countries to ensure the post-2015 development agenda focuses on equality, social protection and accountability, noting that one billion people around the world are still living in poverty. "The rise of inequality has severely undermined the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs," the independent experts said in their message to Member States which will meet this week in New York to...