-Hindustan Times About 50 km south of Ranchi, in Khunti district, a narrow dirt road leads to Ganloya village. Makeshift shops selling tobacco and mobile recharge cards are interspersed with thatched huts and tamarind trees in the hamlet of Panna Lal Mahto, allegedly one of India’s biggest human traffickers. Despite the scorching heat, girls play barefoot in a clearing by a rice field. Nearby, a group of men sitting on a charpoy drink...

-The Hindu When Sreenivasan took up farming, the thumb rule was that pesticides would not be used Kochi: As we go about farming the fields using fertilisers and pesticides, who’s tending the dense and diverse vegetation in forests — which have more fruit-bearing trees and edible roots? The question by Subhash Palekar, noted propounder of zero-budget farming, got actor Sreenivasan thinking about modern farming practices. “Everything that’s there to nurture vegetables and fruits...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's labour arm has walked out of the countrywide strike that 11 unions had called on September 2 to press for a 12-point charter of demands. A recent government survey had ranked the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) as India's largest trade union body with a membership of 62 lakh. Congress-affiliated Intuc came a distant second with 39 lakh members while the CPI's labour wing, Aituc,...

-Livemint.com The inclusion of digital tools in the lives of NGOs will not only make them a mass producer of digital content, but will also help make the voices of civil society louder Amid all the negativity about the roles and responsibilities of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), mostly from the government and in many cases the business sector, one fact that nobody can take away from the non-profits is that theirs is...

-The Times of India BELAGAVI: At a time when the state is witnessing a spate of farmers' suicides owing to mounting debts and crop failure, a group of 12 landless farmers in Geddalabavihatti village in Belagavi taluk are writing a success story with hard work and a never-say-die attitude. When they decided to take up farming on about 45 acres of barren land owned by the state government about four years ago,...