-Down to Earth With hardly any rains in June, no sowing activity has taken place in many regions, making it impossible for farmers to insure crops Maharashtra government has refused to extend the time-LIMit for availing the Weather-Based Crop Insurance Scheme (WBCIS), which is being implemented for the first time in 12 districts of the state this year, despite heavy demand from farmers. The time LIMit for the scheme, which covers...

-Live Mint On a recent trip to rural Bihar, I spent several hours talking with headmasters and cluster officers about how to improve children's learning in primary school. Their responses were primarily complaints directed at others. Complaints about the administrative tasks expected of them; about the Right To Education Act's no-detention policy; about parents and their LIMited interest in the school and about students who rarely attended school. At no point...

-The United Nations (Press Release) New Delhi - "While India has made major progress in the supply of electricity and modern forms of energy, a large part of the population still lives in a state of energy deprivation," said Dr. R.K. Pachauri, Director-General, The Energy and -Resources Institute (TERI) and Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on CLIMate Change (IPCC). Dr. Pachauri was delivering the third United Nations Public Lecture in New Delhi...

-Economic and Political Weekly     Sustained and focused efforts have to be made by the Tamil Nadu state government to provide relief and rehabilitation to the drought affected people of the state. S Rajendran (myrajendran@gmail.com) is with the Department of Economics, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu. Due to the failure of the north-east monsoon in December 2013, Tamil Nadu is witnessing drought like conditions this year, leading to poor agricultural productivity, rural distress,...

-The Business Standard I am really concerned about the growing dependence of India on oil imports and the present situation in Iraq is adding more to it, he said Restricting the effects of cLIMate change would lead to sustainable development, environmentalist R K Pachauri said here on Saturday. "LIMiting the effects of cLIMate change is necessary to achieve sustainable development, equity and poverty reduction," Pachauri, director-general of The Energy and Resources Institute and...