-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The onion crisis gripping the government might be largely man made. Slow release of onion stocks by a clutch of traders rather than a shortfall in production has emerged as a key reason for retail prices rocketing to Rs 70-80 a kg. The government uncovered the plot - hatched by traders operating from major onion markets in Nashik in Maharashtra - as it sought to figure...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: For 52-year-old Nagappa Nimbegundi, a farmer from Makari village in North Karnataka, this Independence Day was special. After three years of relentless efforts, he has managed to revive 13 varieties of indigenous cotton and 11 other varieties of non-Bt cotton in his farm. The seed bank that he is developing is of significance as 90% of cotton production in India has been taken over by Bt...

-The Hindu The story today is a far cry from the 1960s, when we led the developing countries' fight against the disease Tuberculosis is very much in the news, but for all the wrong reasons - a shortage of drugs; increasing multi-drug and extensive drug resistance (MDR, XDR), making treatment both cumbersome and expensive; total drug resistance (TDR) as a veritable death warrant; popularly used serological tests for diagnosis being declared worse...

-The Hindu Aimed shielding political parties, the Bill draws wide protests The Manmohan Singh government on Monday introduced the Right to Information (Amendment Bill), 2013 in the Lok Sabha overriding outrage and protests by ordinary users of the law as well as information activists, many of whom inundated the Speaker's office with appeals and applications urging Meira Kumar to refer the Bill to a select committee. The RTI Act was among a slew...

-Live Mint The absence of genuine competition at mandis and numerous transaction charges are distorting onion prices The joke doing the rounds today is that the spike in onion prices has been a great equalizer, bringing parity between the price of a bottle of beer and a kilo of onion. The humble vegetable has also found pride of place as a gift item to customers at a tyre shop in Jamshedpur,...