August is usually the preferred month fo­r family holidays in Eu­­rope, because of ab­­undant sunshine and warm weather. In India, normally, this is the south-west monsoon season and a busy period for farmers. This year, ho­wever, several farm families in coastal Andhra Pradesh, the ri­ce bowl of the country, are repo­rted to have declared ‘crop holiday’. This is because the rice mills have not been lifting even last years’ crop....

-The Business Standard   Much depends on a strong implementation framework but the imposition of a cap by the Planning Commission could lead to arbitrary exclusions. Himanshu Assistant Professor of Economics, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University The methodology, which is based on the framework suggested by the Saxena Committee, uses indicators that have been refined using a large-scale pilot survey There are over 400 million poor (the number varies depending on which estimate you...

PM's announcement in I-Day address went unnoticed in public focus on corruption Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's announcement on Monday on setting up a commission “to make suggestions for improvements at all levels of education” has largely gone unnoticed amid the public focus on corruption. Even though his Independence Day address did not elaborate on its mandate, sources in the government indicated, the recommendations of the proposed commission should add up to...

Even as the area around Parliament was swamped by crowds of Anna Hazare's supporters, demanding a stronger Lokpal Bill on Wednesday, a small group of environmental activists staged their own demonstration against a different bill, the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill, 2011. Science and Technology Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was scheduled to introduce the controversial BRAI Bill in the Lok Sabha, but the House did not conduct regular business due...

-PTI   The Gujarat government has made a request to the Centre not to ban Endosulfan, an agriculture pesticide found to be an organic pollutant, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said in the Rajya Sabha on Friday. Answering questions, he said production, sale and use of Endosulfan has been banned by Supreme Court, through an interim order, on May 13 in the country. “What the Supreme Court said, we will oblige,” he said. In reply to...