-The Financial Express Dismantling cane economy will not be painless, shift crop to drip irrigation Opinion-makers, from agricultural economists and academics to environmentalists, have blamed sugarcane for aggravating the water shortage in Marathwada. But the view is contested. ‘I reject the hypothesis,’ says Venkat Mayande, during a conversation in Pune. Mayande was vice-chancellor of Akola’s Panjabrao Deshmukh Agricultural University till 2012. How can 2.1 lakh hectare (ha) of cane cause a shortage of...

There is a general perception that men are the primary breadwinners and, therefore, they are the ones responsible for fending for their families. However, recently released data from the population Census 2011 shows that around 3.3 crore households in the country are headed by women. In other words, overall there are 13.2 percent female-headed households (See Chart 1). The Census data shows that there are 59.4 lakh single member female-headed...

-The Hindu India’s first IPR policy trots out the worn western fairy tale that more IP means innovation, and encourages the pointless privatisation of indigenous knowledge India’s National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy, released in mid-May, is a bewildering document. There are two ways to read this policy. The first is as a gigantic exercise in dissimulation, with a terse declaration — India is not changing its IPR laws — tucked inside...

-The Times of India BENGALURU: The number of untraced children in India has seen a whopping hike of 84 per cent in the last three years according to records of Ministry of Home Affairs. While the total number of untraced children in 2013 was 34,244, in 2015, the figure has jumped up to 62,988. Speaking about the reasons behind so many children remaining untraced, Komal Ganotra, director of policy and advocacy for...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: The bread you eat everyday could be pushing you closer to cancer. More than 80% of 38 popular brands of breads, buns and ready-to-eat burger and pizza tested positive for potassium bromate and iodate, a study by the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment says. The first of the two chemicals is a category 2B carcinogen – that can possibly cause cancer – and the second is known to...