-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Landlessness and dependence on manual casual Labour for a livelihood are key deprivations facing rural families, socio-economic census figures suggest. This, experts say, means they are far more vulnerable to impoverishment than indicated by a plain reading of the census data. While 48.5 per cent of all rural households are saddled with at least one deprivation indicator, the eye-opener is how much the other factors overlap with...

-The Hindu A young girl in Jharkhand committed suicide because her father refused to build a toilet for her. When will the Indian male’s insensitivity to women’s basic needs change? Indian men urgently need basic ethical education. Since the 19th century, women’s education has been a progressive obsession with enlightened Indian social reformers. Although much remains to be done to get anywhere close to equal access to education for the genders, there...

-The Hindu Business Line Health-conscious consumers, value-added products seen boosting consumption Bengaluru: Apart from the rising awareness of nutritive benefits, the policy push being given by Karnataka – the largest ragi producing State – is set to see the acreage under finger millet (ragi) grow considerably in the years to come. Higher MSP The Karnataka government has procured over one lakh tonnes of ragi at ₹2,000 a quintal last year (includes a bonus of...

-The Indian Express SECC opens the door to step away from the poverty line as a criterion for government benefits. The Government of India has just released data from the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011. It is perhaps the most ambitious exercise of this kind ever conducted in human history. The SECC 2011 has three parts: census of rural India, conducted by the Union ministry of rural development (MoRD), census...

-The Hindu WAYANAD (KERALA): All the farmers, especially the farmers in the modern generation are interested in adopting innovative techniques to increase the production of their crops or to reduce the cost of production. For which either they follow the advise of agriculture experts or simply emulate the agriculture practices of the progressive farmers in their area. Though many among them will try to to develop their own techniques but, very few...