-PTI NEW DELHI: Bowing to party pressure, the government on Thursday raised the quota of subsidized LPG to 12 cylinders per household in a year from nine at present and also put on hold paying users the subsidy into bank accounts using Aadhaar platform. Announcing the decision taken by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, oil minister M Veerappa Moily said raising the LPG quota will cost Rs 5,000 crore in additional...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A global analysis of how nations tackle environmental challenges has ranked India 155 among 178 nations and labelled the country's air quality among the worst in the world, tying it with China in exposing its population to hazardous air pollution. The Environmental Performance Index 2014, generated by researchers at Yale University in the US, has bracketed India among "bottom performers" on several indicators such as environmental health...

-The Hindu     Huge quantities of stock being routinely seized from middle-men Hyderabad: How much of food grain supplied under the Public Distribution System (PDS) is actually being consumed by white-card holders? Does the scheme truly satisfy its beneficiaries? While the answers are elusive, the fact remains that large quantities of stock are being sold illegally. Statistics provided by the Vigilance & Enforcement (V&E) Department show that huge quantities of stock are routinely being...

-Grain.org "We take care of the cow and the cow takes care of us," says Marayal, a farmer in Thalavady, Tamil Nadu. Her two cows produce 6 to 10 litres of milk a day, which she sells for 30-40 cents per litre. Across India, there are millions of backyard dairy farmers like Marayal. Each owning just one or two cows, these farmers supply millions more families and hundreds of thousands of informal...

-Economic and Political Weekly Price spikes in onion in 2010 and 2013 brought little benefi t to farmers. It is the big traders who manage to maintain high stocks that make a killing in times of sudden price rise. The government's solutions to such problems have only resulted in the further deterioration of wholesale agricultural markets in many states. Kannan Kasturi (kasturi_kannan@yahoo.com) is an independent researcher and writes on public interest and...