-TheNewsMinute.com Due to poverty and dependence on government rations, the communities had become malnourished and prone to several non-communicable diseases. But they soon realised that the solution to their woes was in their past. Three years ago, officials of the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary at Idukki in Kerala conducted a medical camp for the tribal natives residing in the sanctuary. While the officials were expecting to see widespread malnutrition and related ailments, the...

-Livemint.com The production of ‘mahua’ is finally entering the formal economy as new initiatives seek to upscale this indigenous drink, selling it across the country and even the globe It is a cloudy morning in Nangur village in Bastar district, Chattisgarh. It is a settlement of a little over 400 families, considered fairly large in these parts. We make a bumpy journey down a narrow, unpaved road intermittently shaded by sargi (sal)...

-The Indian Express AIIB meeting presents an opportunity to redefine the parameters of development. Budha Ismail Jam, a fisherman from Kutch, will be unknown to most delegates at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s (AIIB) annual meeting being held in Mumbai on June 25-26. Yet, Jam’s story has far-reaching implications if infrastructure projects are to be more focused on the well-being of people rather than the profit margins of investors. The third annual meeting...

-The Indian Express We have, indeed, entered a regime of “permanent surpluses” in most crops — a reality our policymakers are unable to grasp, stuck as they are in the era of the Essential Commodities Act. If there is one thing that has changed in Indian agriculture in recent times, it is supply response — the ability of farmers to increase production when prices go up. Traditionally, the supply curve in most...

-The Hindu They matter because they sustain social practices without which human life is neither worthwhile nor indeed possible There is much talk these days about the decline in our institutions. Aren’t they failing to perform, being systematically undermined, even destroyed? On the one hand, people are heard lamenting that our courts are compromised, that our Parliament is dysfunctional, or that our higher education is in a mess. On the other hand,...