-IndiaSpend.com Up to 80% of India’s public expenditure on education is spent on teachers–salaries, training and learning material, according to a new six-state report. Yet, the quality of learning at Indian schools is falling, as IndiaSpend has reported, and India is short of teachers compared to other BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) nations, which have done far better at imparting literacy. This is how India’s education money is being spent, according...

-The Hindu Gajendra Singh Rajput from Dausa. Hargovind Harane from Vidarbha . Gosai Patra from Bardhaman. Why did these farmers take their own lives? In the light of the burning issue of farmer suicides across the country, A.R. Vasavi looks at the plight of the marginalised cultivator. Basamma and her ailing husband have carried and spread their five sacks of ragi (finger millet) from their half-acre plot to the local tar road...

-Outlook Bhubaneshwar: Odisha government today announced a hike in the minimum wages of skilled, unskilled and Semi-skilled workers based on the recomendation of the State Minimum Wage Advisory Committee. While the minimum wage for an unskilled labourer has been raised to Rs 200 from Rs 150 per day, the Semi-skilled workers will get Rs 220 each instead of Rs 170 a day, a government notification stated. The skilled worker will get Rs 240...

-The Economic Times BENGALURU: To fend off an agrarian crisis similar to the one sweeping across parts of north India and prevent farmer suicides, Karnataka has begun to implement a scheme to monsoon-proof the farmer that could turn out to be a national solution. About 35,000 farmers across the state's 175 taluks are implementing the pilot programme by setting up polythene-lined water storage ponds in their fields to prevent water seep age...

-Tehelka In these times of agrarian distress, NK Bhoopesh revisits the ‘revolution’ that changed Indian agriculture The growing number of farmer suicides across the country has punched holes in the dominant narrative of India’s rise as a global economic power articulated ad nauseum by big business, mainstream politicians and the corporate media. It has also put a question mark on another familiar tale: that the green revolution introduced in the 1960s was...