-The Times of India MUMBAI: Fifteen years since farmers in the state's Marathwada and Vidarbha regions started taking their own lives, the state on Friday announced the first psycho-social health plan to check the epidemic of suicides. The plan hinges on community health workers — the accredited social health activists (ASHAs) and anganwadi workers — carrying out a questionnaire-based screening test to assess the mental health of farmers. "We carried out an audit...

-The Hindu Across the country, unless adequate jobs are created for the large labour force, the frustration of the youth is not likely to be contained. In Gujarat, the Patels or Patidars, who constitute about 15 per cent of the State’s population, are an economically and politically dominant upper caste. As successful farmers, as small and big industrialists, as traders as well as non-resident Gujaratis, spread practically all over the world, they...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: In 2014, Maharashtra had more women in its police force than any other state or union territory in India. But its 17,957 policewomen formed a minuscule 10.48% of the state's total police force. Delhi ranks 12th in the list, at 7.15%, well below Chandigarh's top tally of 14.16%. The Maharashtra numbers are particularly depressing because the state was the first to introduce a 30% reservation for women...

-Livemint.com BJP’s U-turn on the proposed land Act reflects a re-balancing of deeper political forces that are at work in India’s political economy The recent U-turn by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government on the proposed amendment to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (henceforth the land Act), can be viewed narrowly as a Congress victory in the ongoing tit-for-tat game that is short-changing...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Indian weaver is dismissed in high places as an embarrassing anachronism, despite demand for his or her skills and products. In the new millennium, globalisation and a mindless acquiescence to imported notions of a good life threaten to take over, even as the West looks East for better concepts of sustainable living. Analysing today's crisis in the handloom sector, plagued by low-cost imitations from power looms,...