Groundwater, which irrigates half of Indian agriculture and provides 85% of rural drinking consumption, is an increasingly scarce resource. There is a growing understanding that it must be approached as a common property resource for collective benefit. It is best understood and managed by those who live near them and use them rather than agencies who visit sporadically - that is the central premise of efforts around participatory groundwater management....

-The Hindu Hassan (Karnataka): Though officials of the departments of Public Instruction, and Women and Child Development may be enthusiastic about setting up pre-primary centres (Makkala Mane) to attract children to government Schools, it has attracted the ire of anganwadi workers. With the setting up of these centres, anganwadi workers have to look after lower kindergarten classes aside from implementing the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). The Makkala Mane centres were set up...

-The Hindu Department of Public Instruction seeks higher allocations from Centre Mysore: The soaring prices of food commodities, particularly rice and vegetables, have escalated the cost of cooking food for Schoolchildren under the midday meal scheme, Akshara Dasoha, in the State. As rice is the staple diet under the popular scheme which has addressed the issue of School dropout, the sharp rise in the prices of rice and vegetables have only increased the...

-Associated Press London: In the first major global review of violence against women, a series of reports released Thursday found that about a third of women have been physically or sexually assaulted by a former or current partner. The head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Margaret Chan, called it "a global health problem of epidemic proportions," and other experts said screening for domestic violence should be added to all levels of...

-The United Nations More than a third of women worldwide are affected by physical or sexual violence, many at the hands of an intimate partner, according to a new United Nations report that offers guidelines to help countries respond to this global epidemic. The report, Global and regional estimates of violence against women: Prevalence and health effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence, represents the first systematic study of global...