-The Hindu Bangalore: The government has identified 15 basic amenities to enhance quality of life in villages. It has asked gram panchayats (GPs) to make all these facilities available to the people. These include drinking water, playgrounds and open-air theatres. The move is aimed at arresting the migration of rural people towards urban areas. In a circular issued last week, the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Department said of the 6.11...

-Kafila.org This fact-finding exercise was coordinated by the CENTRE FOR POLICY ANALYSIS. Team members were the human rights activist and former civil servant Harsh Mander; former Director-General of the Border Security Force, E N Rammohan; Professor Kamal Mitra Chenoy of Jawaharlal Nehru University; National Integration Council member John Dayal; senior journalist Sukumar Muralidharan and CPA Director and senior editor Seema Mustafa. Introduction and Overview The first impression of the Muzaffarnagar countryside, now green...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com Kozhikode: Dubai's agriculture minister recently chartered a flight to Kozhikode and, accompanied by a horticulture consultant, headed to the Agriculture Research Station (ARS) at Anakkayam nearby. There the minister, Abdulla Jassim Abdulla M Almarzooqi, placed orders for fruits, spices and ornamental plants. But on his mind was something bigger. He offered free visas and air tickets to the 100 members of the research station's agricultural army, which rather grandly goes...

-The Indian Express Dehradun: This horse has spent his entire life ferrying pilgrims to and from Kedarnath Dham. And since December 16 -- when the first rush of water brought with it untold devastation for the region -- this horse has been stuck on a rocky bed across river Mandakini, without a blade of grass to graze on. We shall call him Hope. ''All attempts, by NGOs and even the Army, to...

-The Telegraph Dairy farmer Nivrutti Bhagwan Gaikwad, 42, wanted to take no chances with nature. A hardworking and enterprising man, he built his cattle shed scientifically in consultation with livestock experts, installing air coolers and filtered-water pipelines for his cattle, building separate compartments for the cows and the buffaloes, and erecting a fodder godown. He used high-quality cans to collect and transport the 180 litres of milk his 50 cows and buffaloes produced...