-The Times of India India and her neighbors are going through a tortuous process of urbanization - slow, messy and partly hidden. This is seen in severe problems of livability and congestion, making cities unattractive for rural migrants. As a result, whatever benefits urban agglomerations could have offered in terms of economic advance are getting diluted. This is the dire analysis of a 200-page World Bank report on urbanization in South...

-The Times of India BATHINDA: Finding it difficult to repay his loan and facing damage to his cotton crop, a young farmer committed suicide on Thursday at a farmers' protest venue in Bathinda. Kuldeep Singh, 26, of Chughe Kalan village in Bathinda consumed a poisonous substance around 2am and died four hours later at a hospital. Kuldeep's family owns five acres of land and had taken another 13 acres on lease. He had...

-The Hindu Business Line A narrow focus on growth-led development is the cause of the world’s sustainability crisis, not its solution The world’s political leaders meet in New York today to adopt a ‘sustainable development’ agenda. On the face of it, this sounds very hopeful. It signals that finally, humanity may move towards making peace with the earth, even as it erases the shame of over two billion people still living in...

-The Hindu Just over one in 10 adults received training: survey The Modi government will have its work cut out on skill development; just over one in 10 adults reported having received any vocational training, according to new official data, and the bulk of it was informal. The National Sample Survey Office on Tuesday released data from its 2011-12 round on education and vocational training. The numbers show that among persons in the...

-The Hindu Business Line Recently, the Telangana Agricultural Advisory Forum, consisting of a few university professors and scientists, deliberated on the causes and consequences of the drought and farmer ‘suicides’ in the State. The unofficial number of suicides attributed to farm families is 1,152. An inquiry into some of the recent suicides reveals an interesting picture. The farmers were not indebted to cooperative credit societies or commercial banks. The case of a...