-The Business Standard The latest suicide in Vidarbha underlines the need for flexible loan repayment norms for farmers Is it better to give compensation to dead farmers, or to provide loans and insurance to those who are alive? In the case of a majority of cotton farmers in Maharashtra, who are struggling against shrinking land size, production costs and debts, there is neither credit or insurance when alive nor compensation on death. Farmers caught...

-The Hindu   Neha Khator narrates the story of an NGO that transformed a backward village into a bustling city, with funds, of course, but also by fostering a sense of duty in its residents. Vimla Kanwar, a 70-year-old widow, had a problem. After her husband, a handloom yarn spinner, died of cancer, the officials at the Khadi Gram Udyog took away his charkha. Concerned about finding a means of survival at her...

-The Hindustan Times Bhubaneswar: A woman sarpanch in Odisha's Kendrapada district has lodged a complaint with the State Women's Commission and district collector against her husband, who allegedly has been misusing her position. In her complaint, Minati Naik (37), sarpanch of the Alailo gram panchayat, about 130 km east of Bhubaneswar, said after being elected sarpanch last year, she wanted to serve the people but her husband, along with some unscrupulous elements,...

-The Indian Express Kolkata: AMONG the 6.25 lakh complaints received by Justice Sen Commission, which has been set up by the West Bengal government to inquire into the Saradha Group and other chit fund scams and also to look into ways to return Money to investors, many have been submitted by people from other states where the firms were operating. "Since the West Bengal government is the only state government that has...

-The Hindu   The parliamentary committees on the howitzer scam and the stock market scandal protected the powerful and failed to fix accountability. The same is true in the spectrum case The current political situation brings back memories of 1989. The Prime Minister then was under a cloud in the Bofors scam. Many of his close associates like Lalit Suri and Ajitabh Bachchan were accused of wrong-doing. Today, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and...