-Khaleej Times Online   Maoists have stepped up their campaign against the proposed bauxite mining in north coastal Andhra Pradesh, with the extremists asking lawmakers to pass a resolution in the state Legislative Assembly pledging not to take up mining in the tribal areas. The outlawed outfit, CPI (Maoist), put up banners and posters and distributed pamphlets in several villages in Visakhapatnam district warning of serious consequences if the legislators went ahead with...

-The Times of India   Forseeing a bleak future for the country's children, an independent report said poverty was leading to malnutrition, stunted growth and high school dropout rates.  The 'Impact of Growth on Childhood Poverty in Andhra Pradesh' was conducted by NGO-Young Lives from 2002 and has collected data on 2,011 children aged between six to 18 months and 1,008 children aged between seven-and-half to eight-and-half years. Findings from its third round...

To banish hunger and malnutrition from the country, Parliament is likely to pass the National Food Security Bill (NFSB). In our earlier article on this issue, Can we Afford Rs 6-Lakh-Cr Food Subsidy Bill in 3 Yrs? (ET, December 17, 2011), we concentrated on the likely financial implication that we estimated at roughly Rs 6,00,000 crore over a period of three years. In this piece, we address the operational challenges...

  -PTI Experts from the University of Oxford and Indian researchers are looking into the impact of climate change policies on India's informal economy, and to diagnose ways of reducing CO2 emissions and improving jobs.  By and large the global response to climate change has ignored informal economies and yet the larger part of India's economy and almost all its jobs are informal and not directly affected by government policy, a university release...

Downplaying the impact of drought in three states on national food production, agriculture and cooperation secretary Prabeer Kumar Basu says the number of people dependent on agriculture has to come down for rural incomes to rise.  "We have sent our team for an assessment of the situation. None of this will affect overall production because it will be compensated by the rest of India where crop conditions are excellent. We will...