-PTI Chandigarh: Punjab, the food bowl of the country, may not achieve bumper wheat output this season, with several growing areas facing "massive" crop loss due to untimely rains accompanied by hailstorm and high velocity winds during February and this month. "We may not have bumper wheat production this season as rains along with hailstorm have damaged wheat crop in several parts of Punjab," Punjab Agriculture Director, Mangal Singh Sandhu told PTI. He...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Under watch across the world over the alarming quality of air in its national capital, are Indian authorities trying to shoot the messenger? The Delhi Pollution Control Committee, which runs a real-time air pollution monitoring system, has been rapped for releasing "raw" or "unedited" air quality data on its website. In a meeting last week, the Union environment ministry has decided that DPCC's data will be...

-Frontline Kerala is facing a situation where health care costs are leading more and more people, not just low-income families, to financial distress. KERALA is once again drawing attention to itself, this time for a persistent trend of a large number of households being pushed into financial ruin because of the expenses incurred for medical care. Several studies have now found evidence for the many facets of this worrying development in a...

-The Hindu While the rates of sexual violence in India - both reported in official statistics and unreported on the basis of household surveys - are towards the lower end of the global spectrum, data on women's autonomy in India indicate that there is a hidden emergency Having opened up a fresh conversation about the situation of women since the December 16, 2012 gang rape, has India done enough to address the...

-The Hindu The Bill to amend the 2013 land acquisition Act is neither pro-farmer nor pro-poor Next week the economic agenda of the Narendra Modi government will face its biggest test in Parliament. The controversial Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015 (LARR) that has been introduced in Lok Sabha is due for consideration of the house on March 9. While the government seems...