-The Economic Times With reports of groundwater level going down in Punjab and Haryana, considered the rice bowl of India, scientists and analysts suggest its cultivation be shifted to eastern states which have better water resources. They say Punjab and Haryana should focus on basmati rice, which is largely exported, and the eastern states should produce non-basmati varieties for meeting the domestic demand. Talking to ET, Dr Swapan Kumar Dutta, deputy director general...

-Live Mint He is at the head of a march to Delhi for a new policy that promises every poor family a small patch of land Morena (Madhya Pradesh): One hot Friday in October, a 64-year-old man named P.V. Rajagopal is marching at the head of a procession of around 50,000 people on the highway from Gwalior to Delhi.   Rajagopal is slight and heavily sunburnt, and has walked tens of thousands of kilometres...

-Mainstream Weekly Intense and motivated propaganda, powerful national and international diplomatic pressure, verging on pure and simple arms-twisting of the kind the Third World has been facing for decades by means of the active role of the econo-mic hit-men in the policy establishments, huge cash-back lobbying, both in India and abroad, blunt attempts to bamboozle the persons holding key positions in India’s policy establishment through a combination of hissing and kissing...

-The Hindustan Times A demand for the money allotted to her under Indira Vikas Yojana cost a mahadalit woman her life in Bihar's Gaya district. The former block pramukh, who had siphoned off the funds, allegedly sprinkled kerosene on Putukwa Devi and set her on fire. Putukwa Devi died in hospital on Sunday. The 35-year-old woman was a member of the poorest of dalits. The category was created by chief minister Nitish...

-The Indian Express Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has proposed to “live fence” graveyards, dargahs and eidgahs under MGNREGA to protect them. In a letter to National Commission for Minorities chief Wajahat Habibullah, who had requested that boundary walls around these places be built under the employment guarantee scheme, Ramesh suggested that they “be provided with live fencing under the Land Development and Plantation works category of MGNREGA for which provisions may...