-The Telegraph New Delhi: Prospective parents looking to adopt might in future have to choose the child they want as their own by going through photographs, with the government planning to end the practice of allowing them to meet several children before they take one home. Under existing rules, prospective parents can meet at least three children - referred by an adoption agency - before they take a decision. Draft guidelines the women...

-Economic and Political Weekly There has been a major change in the composition and mix of the cattle population in India. The proportion of male cattle has declined sharply as farmers do not fi nd it worthwhile to maintain bullocks to plough holdings that are becoming smaller and smaller. The composition of the milch cattle population too is changing. The proportion of the indigenous breed is falling and that of the...

-Hindustan Times When right to information activist Guru Prasad Shukla was beaten to death by fellow villagers last month, he became the 39th person to lay down his life for exercising the transparency law in its first decade. Another 275 people have reportedly been assaulted or harassed for invoking the law to raise uncomfortable questions before those in power. The 50-year-old Shukla had sought information about development work in his village and...

-DNA Mumbai: What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of an irrigation project? Water? Well, that doesn’t seem to be the case with the Union Union Ministry for Forests, Environment & Climate Change (MoEF). How else would it have cleared the the Rs 4,845 crore, 23.66 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) Krishna Marathwada Lift Irrigation Scheme (KMLIS) without water availability? The environmental clearance given on 24th June...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: A practically broke Maharashtra State Aids Control Society (MSACS) has asked NGOs to curtail their HIV prevention activities in the state and do away with a significant chunk of their workforce. Over 182 projects that cater to nearly three lakh high-risk population in the state will suffer as distribution of condoms and syringes to availability of medicines and testing kits will take a direct hit. The circular...