-Hindustan Times Sheopur: The tribals of 106 villages in Madhya Pradesh have either demolished government made toilets or are using them as storerooms, say government officials, admitting that one of the reasons behind this was faulty design. This happened just 450 kilometres from Bhopal in Sheopur district villages where the government had built about 13,000 roofless, waterless and three-walled structures’ in the name of toilets in 2008-09 under its rural sanitation scheme. Many...

-The Times of India RAIPUR: Adopting grafting method and other technology, a Bastar-based farmer has overcome the tribal region's airborne disease bacterial wilt, which hampered the cultivation of brinjal vegetable in this region of Chhattisgarh. Progressive farmer Ramesh Chawda now gets an yield of 1,25,000kg of brinjal from each acre of his 2.5 acres Land. To make brinjal cultivation a success in this terrain, he adopted the horticulture technique of grafting the...

-India Today Ahmedabad: IIT-Madras graduate Kannan Lakshminarayan dusted a few copies of "Young India" to find Mahatma Gandhi's vision and initiate cotton farmers to use miniature spinning machines right in their village where they grow the crop and increase their income. Following this, the middleman was out, the long-drawn value chain was short-circuited while farmers became spinners first and subsequently, weavers and even garment makers. In 1920, Mahatma Gandhi had written in...

-IndiaSpend.com About 8% of 804 industrial projects – with a planned investment of Rs 421,062 crore ($67.91 billion) – across India are in limbo because of Land-acquisition problems, according to data released by the finance ministry. The data complement a 2014 Comptroller and Auditor General report that says 38% of Land acquired for special economic zones has not been used. The leading causes for stalled plans were unfavourable market conditions (98 projects) –...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The government today gave in to the Opposition and referred the bill for regulating real estate to a select committee for scrutiny. Urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu brought a motion for sending the bill to the committee, to be headed by BJP MP Anil Madhav Dave. The 21-member panel will have to hand in its report at the start of the monsoon session. The Opposition had demanded examination...