-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The United States and Pakistan have questioned several of India's farm trade policies, including its Land holding laws and the subsidy mechanism at the World Trade Organization, which is the latest assault being faced by the country after it raised the red flag over domestic support to farmers in Bali. Since the Bali ministerial meeting last December, WTO members have repeatedly put the lens on India's...

-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...

-Accountability Initiative/ RaghuBytes Unless you have a blocked nose, I strongly suggest that you do not drive from Bhubaneshwar the capital of Orissa, to Kandamahal, a remote tribal district, particularly in the evenings. At twilight, when you begin to wind into the interior, you are greeted with the sight of the behinds of the entire population squatting on the roadside, faces turned away and shitting. We quickly wound up the windows...

-The Times of India PUNE: A recently published study says the Indian Ocean has been warming consistently for over a century and at a faster rate than any other region of tropical oceans - and this may weaken the monsoon. The study by scientists from Pune's Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Sorbonne University in Paris and Pune's Fergusson College found the warming of the Indian Ocean has been a major contributor...