The total number of family planning acceptors in the country has increased by 3.5 per cent between 2010 and 2011. Latest official statistics have shown that condom is the most preferred method of family planning while sterilisations the least adopted means. The comparative figures between April and September 2010 and 2011 put the number of couples adopting some method for family planning, including spacing methods, is close to 24 million, with at...

Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar, India’s biggest rural retail chain by sales, which operates 230 stores across eight states and had seen good growth in the past two years, said it had seen a fall in rural demand in the past two to three months. A drop in prices of potatoes, onions and some other vegetables, leading to low realisation for farmers, and an increase in cost of fertiliser, are reasons for these...

Agriculture sector undergoes a historic change as livestock surpasses the economy of food grain Policy makers in India are finally acknowledging a structural shift in the agriculture sector they have been noticing for a decade. Economic contribution of livestock is today more than that of food grain crops. Traditionally, of the three components of the sector—crops, livestock and fisheries—crops drove the growth, and food grains are a major part of it....

States turn to dubious technology for saving girl child With the country’s child sex ratio hitting an all-time low—944 girls for every 1,000 boys—states are turning to a monitoring device to fix the imbalance. Public health activists say the device, called Silent Observer, is more hogwash than an answer. Silent Observer can be fitted into sonography machines to allow the authorities to monitor and record pre-natal ultrasound scans taken by doctors. It...

-The Times of India   The AP High Court was pulled up by the Central Information Commission (CIC) for its failure to adhere to the RTI Act. Nine other high courts besides AP's have been given three months time to get their act right. The CIC was reacting to a complaint filed by Hyderabad-based RTI activist C J Karira and Mani Ram Sharma of rajasthan between December 2009 and March 2010. The complainants...