-PTI MUMBAI: Severely hit by drought since the past few years, the Maharashtra government has outlined a Rs 60,000 crore programme which includes creating decentralised water storage to make the state drought free in three years. "Maharashtra is reeling under severe drought crisis. We have outlined an investment of Rs 60,000 crore over the next three years to ensure that Maharashtra is drought free," Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said at the 177th...

-The Hindu Business Line   In much of the discussion on the turnaround after the Great Recession, attention has been focused on financial consolidation and the halting return to growth. Far less attention has been paid to the persistence of high and even rising unemployment and its sources. In the desperate search for evidence that the global recession has bottomed out and the recovery has arrived, the story told by the long-term trend...

-The United Nations     While insects can be slimy, cringe-inducing creatures, often squashed on sight by humans, a new book released today by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) says beetles, wasps and caterpillars are also an unexplored nutrition source that can help address global food insecurity. The book, Edible Insects: future prospects for food and feed security, stresses not just the nutritional value of insects, but also the benefits that insect farming...

-Frontline   But in Modi's Gujarat the difference between development and darkness is all too visible to those who care to see. NARENDRA MODI may have won three consecutive elections and ruled Gujarat for more than a decade after he was posted there almost as a night watchman, to borrow a cricketing expression. He may have mobilised a massive fan following that is shouting to catapult him into the Prime Minister's post,...

-Live Mint Lack of decentralization means municipalities lack power, resources to meet rising aspirations of ‘middle' India Othakadai, Madurai (Tamil Nadu)/Hubli (Karnataka): S. Paramasivam , president of the Othakadai panchayat, has big plans for his area. "Rainwater harvesting, removal of encroachments on roads, waste recycling, covered drainage, bigger primary health care centres and community parks," lists the 58-year-old, who has spent 30 years in the stainless steel business that dominates industry...