-The Indian Express The Indian meteorological department (IMD) website states that Kautilya's Arthashastra contains records of rainfall and its impact on revenue, as well as details about relief work. Similarly, Kalidasa's Meghdoot, written around the seventh century, mentions the date of the onset of the monsoon and traces the path of monsoon clouds. Till today, forecasts are made on the same broad lines. Farmers like me still look towards indigenous knowledge for...

Documents availed through RTI reveals that the Rural Development minister Shri Nitin Gadkari has ordered to bring drastic changes in the schedule of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which includes changing the labour to material ratio and restricting the implementation of MGNREGA in 1/3rd of backward blocks in India (please click here to access a note on labour-material ratio prepared by People's Action for Employment Guarantee-PAEG). The MoRD has notified the...

-The Hindu India needs a meaningful electricity service, not merely a wire connection to every household No one would believe that simply owning a smart phone would be enough to go online and get connected - one would still need a data connection for that to happen. Similarly, it is time that we added a similar level of service to define electrification, a focus area for the government. A decade ago, a village...

-Tehelka Despite the serious toll it takes on women's health, female sterilisation remains the most prevalent form of contraception in India. While memories of the 21 months of Emergency in 1975-77, imposed by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, survives even today in the minds of Indian men as the fear of forced sterilisation, the country's population control policies have shifted over the years since then to target the politically less...

-The Economic Times Dinkar Patil, a farmer from Buldhana district in Vidarbha, Maharashtra, normally cultivates cotton on his 13-acre farm land. This year, however, he has skipped the cotton crop and opted for soyabean and tur dal. "The rainfall started late. I did not cultivate cotton because of the delayed rains and the huge increase in cost of cultivation of the crop," said Patil. He is expecting a fall of about...