-Down to Earth Thousands of people working under NREGS bring a 38 km stream back from the dead in Uttar Pradesh Thirty nine-year-old Ram Ishwar gave up farming to pull a rickshaw outside the railway station in Uttar Pradesh's Fatehpur town. He says scarcity of water and a resultant increase in the cost of irrigation rendered farming unprofitable. Wheat production from his 0.4 hectare (ha) farmland shrank from one tonne to half...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Lack of awareness in rural areas regarding the enhanced definition of disability in census 2011 could have LED to severe undercounting of the disabLED, the bulk of whom reside in rural India. Rural areas account for almost 70% of the population of people with different kinds of disabilities. Yet the increase in the number of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in the rural areas is barely...

-Vikalp The recently concluded Bali Ministerial marks an important milestone in the WTO negotiations. The National Food Security Act, 2013 in India has brought the issue of food security and hunger within developing countries to the forefront of the negotiations in the WTO. In this context, the G-33 proposal addressing the issue of non-recognition of food security concerns of developing countries within the global trade rules reflected a meaningful unity within...

-The Hindu State rejects proposals for new police stations; cites financial reasons Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh): Crime against women registered an upward trend in Cyberabad this year, with nearly 400 additional cases being booked compared to the previous year. As many as 2,391 cases pertaining to crime against women were booked this year when compared to 1,914 registered last year. Of them, 1,565 cases pertained to harassment, while 334 were related to outraging of...

-Outlook Government today reduced minimum export price (MEP) of onion to USD 150 a tonne from USD 350 to boost shipments and check sharp fall in domestic prices that has LED to farmers protest in producing states. This is the third downward revision of onion MEP, the benchmark price below which the commodity can not be exported, this month. On December 16, the Centre had reduced it to USD 800 a tonne...