-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A UN report has projected steady decline in prices of foodgrains over the next decade, attributing the gradual price fall to increase in overall agricultural production and diversification of dietary choices towards meat and dairy products. The report, released last week, however, emphasized that prices of foodgrains would not fall below early 2000-levels "despite the advantageous scenario regarding global food pricing". It noted that additional agricultural...

-The Telegraph Shillong: Rural areas in the Northeast have recorded a high percentage of unmarried people while the percentage of women-headed households is a little above the national average. According to the provisional data of the Socio-Economic and Caste Census, 2011, the percentage of people in rural Northeast who have "never married" is 47.42 per cent against the national average of 41.64 per cent. Among the northeastern states, including Sikkim, Nagaland has the...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: Nine-year-old Priyanka Kumari wants to escape her impoverished childhood but the school she studies in is most unusual – underneath a metro bridge in East Delhi’s Shakarpur area. The pillars serve as the boundary of the school and trains roar past on the bridge above, rattling her as she solves elementary mathematical problems. “The teaching here is good, I like coming to this school. Sir gives work to do...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Two decades after launch, implementation of the midday meal scheme in Delhi seems to suffer from teething problems. CAG says the scheme is still not reaching all the children it's meant to cover, the meals do not meet the minimum quality requirements, the monitoring system is weak and service providers remain empanelled despite defaulting. Worryingly, some of the lacunae had been pointed out even in 2006,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A joint parliamentary panel examining the Narendra Modi government's land acquisition bill has been flooded with objections to the proposed legislation from those who have deposed before it so far, sources have said. The Confederation of Indian Industry is the only one among 34 individuals and organisations to have supported the changes the bill seeks to make to the current law, passed in December 2013 under UPA rule,...