-The Indian Express If you are a vegetarian in India, the chances of your suffering pesticide exposure may be higher than for those predominantly consuming non-vegetarian foods. Almost a fifth of all foods produced and sold in the country contain pesticide residues, according to a Union agriculture ministry-sponsored nationwide network project involving 25 participating labs. During 2014-15, as many as 20,618 food samples were collected and analysed under a ‘Monitoring of Pesticide Residues...

-Down to Earth From providing agricultural information for specific countries to identifying trends in the sector, censuses serve a variety of purpose In the backdrop of a round of country-driven agricultural censuses which will begin in 2016 to gather information and statistics on the global agriculture sector, senior FAO statiscian Jairo Castano discusses with Down To Earth the importance of the exercise. * How helpful are agricultural censuses in gathering information and statistics...

-The Indian Express In Hajipur’s two anganwadis, which take in children between six months and six years, untouchability is one of the first life lessons they learn. Patan (Gujarat): A digit separates anganwadis 159 and 160 in Hajipur village of Gujarat’s Patan district but the divisions are far greater. Now that’s complicated math for a three-year-old. So one morning, a few weeks ago, Manavi Chamar walked towards anganwadi No. 160, lost...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government is preparing to crack down on community radio stations for failing to broadcast the Prime Minister's monthly radio programme, Mann ki Baat, and for airing "anti-government" views. The Union information and broadcasting ministry, after a scrutiny of the content of some 30 community radio stations in the National Capital Region, has found broadcasts from most of the stations "objectionable", officials said. "These radio stations that...

-The Hindu Despite its uneven history in India, decentralisation is vital to strengthen participatory democracy, facilitate responsive governance and enable public service delivery. Much has been written on decentralisation in India though, on the ground, there is very little to show despite the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments. The rationale for decentralisation comes from the need to strengthen participatory democracy, facilitate responsive governance, ensure greater accountability and enable public service delivery according to...