-The Hindustan Times Punjab: Having seen my uncle hard at work in a farm and his decision to quit school to till land, I have often felt that popular imagination tends to see farming as an esoteric profession and food production as something that will somehow magically take care of itself. A young man/woman (who has had secondary education) seems to consider agriculture as far too back-breaking and tedious to be taken...

-The Telegraph Calcutta: The amount of work Bengal has provided under the central 100-day-a-year scheme in 2013-14 is much less than the national average, latest data have shown, swivelling the spotlight on a trend continuing since the Left rule. Although providing work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a focus area of the Mamata Banerjee government, Union rural development ministry data show that Bengal has given...

-The Hindustan Times A "progressive Punjab agriculture summit", scheduled in SAS Nagar from February 16 to 19 is a welcome step. The event comes close on the heels of an earlier summit on industry. Together, agriculture and industry form a strong fulcrum for Punjab's economic growth and prosperity. However, at present, both are in a grip of crisis; and perhaps unable to face the future challenges/opportunities on their own. It calls for...

-The Times of India NAGPUR: Maharashtra government disclosed that it had incurred a expenditure of Rs 3.71 crore on probe panel of much-hyped Adarsh Housing Society scam in Mumbai. This led to rest the speculations about total amount spent on the scam report drafted by Justice JA Patil and former bureaucrat P Subramaniam. Earlier, it was speculated that the government had spent Rs7 crore on the panel constituted in 2011 by...

-Outlook Lucknow: Union Minister Jairam Ramesh has shot off another letter to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav seeking early implementation of the Allahabad High Court order on CBI inquiry into misappropriation of funds under the NREGA. While recalling his earlier correspondence to the Chief Minister, in a fresh letter issued yesterday, Ramesh stressed on the necessity for a CBI probe into funds misappropriation in seven districts including Balrampur, Gonda, Mahoba, Sonbhadra,...