-The Telegraph Ahmedabad: If "pay and use" toilets can't slay the demon of open defecation, perhaps "get paid for not using" will. So believes the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, which plans to shame the city's dump-it-in-the-open brigade by catching them in the act every morning and paying them Re 1 on the spot. Will this not be an incentive for the offenders to stick to the old habit rather than shed it? Civic health...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-DNA The maggi controversy has brought other food products under the scanner of food safety inspectors, not only in India but abroad as well. The maggi controversy has brought other food products under the scanner of food safety inspectors, not only in India but abroad as well. United States food safety inspectors have labelled hundreds of made-in-India snacks unfit for sale in America, according to Wall Street Journal. The US FDA reportedly found...

-Hindustan Times Rohtak: The meteorological (Met) department's prediction of below-average rainfall this year between June and September has raised the concern among paddy growers in the state, who are already reeling under crop losses due to the unseasonal rainfall, which has damaged the rabi crops. The prediction of poor rainfall will not only affect the farmers, but also rice production in the state, as according to the figures given by the state...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Various rights groups have urged the government to hold a public consultation on the proposed amendments to the Child Labour Bill, which they warned will end up legitimizing economic exploitation of children and rob them of their childhood. They have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a public consultation on the amendments and called for the removal of the provision seeking to legitimise use of children under 14...