-The Hindu MADURAI: Muthumari's day starts at 4 a.m. She milks her cows in the cowshed behind the house and keeps cans of milk ready to be collected by a pickup van from a private dairy company. Then she turns to her household chores and sends her children off to school. Packing the day's food for herself, she proceeds towards the fields in her village at Udayanpatti. She is not just a...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Private players have placed orders to import around 7,000 tonnes of onions, while the government leaned on a public sector company to ship the key kitchen ingredient to beat the domestic shortage. The moves came even as the food and consumer affairs ministry said it will seek export curbs if prices did not ease in a fortnight. Senior government officials said Project Export Corporation was on...

-PTI New Delhi: Amid differences between rural development and agriculture ministries over implementation of works under rural job scheme, a parliamentary panel said that improper planning of jobs during farm season was causing labour availability problem in the key sector. "... Lack of proper planning of works under MNREGA without keeping in view of local agriculture practice is causing the problem of labour availability in agriculture sector," Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural...

-Outlook The Comptroller and Auditor General has slammed Railways for not effectively implementing Railway Board's guidelines for mechanised cleaning of major stations and not taking effective pest control measures in coaches. Besides the audit body has observed that Railways has failed to provide good quality of linen to passengers which has resulted in increased passenger dissatisfaction. "There was lack of synchronisation between guidelines of Railway Ministry on maintenance of cleanliness and availability of...

-Frontline A World Bank report on climate change warns that a warmer world will trap millions in poverty. "Much of the advance of European capitalists and other members of the European ruling class was at the cost of the colonised and enslaved peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America," says Amiya Kumar Bagchi in his book "Perilous Passage: Mankind and the Global Ascendancy of Capital." Capitalist expansion following the Industrial Revolution involved...