-Down to Earth That explains why agrarian riots have increased by over 600 per cent in the last three years Whenever agriculture makes headlines, ironically, they hide more stories of distress. For sixth consecutive year, horticulture (fruits and vegetables) production has outstripped food grain production. Apparently, it is encouraging news given that farmers earn more from vegetables and fruits than food grains. But around the same time, reports of farmers dumping...

-Scroll.in Both want states to take their advice in restructuring their primary schools. Government think-tank Niti Aayog’s collaboration with three state education departments appears to have set off friction with the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development. An official of the Niti Aayog, who did not want to be identified, said the ministry has objected to the think-tank’s programme called Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital, or SATH. Under the programme,...

Although life expectancy at birth for both the sexes has improved over the last quarter of a century, a recent report points out that ‘non-communicable diseases’ (NCDs) now account for a larger proportion of total deaths vis-à-vis ‘communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional disease' (CMNNDs). The report entitled India: Health of the Nation’s States - The India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative, which has been prepared after two years of intense collaborative...

-Down to Earth Shockingly, the state’s infant mortality rate is worse than Jharkhand; it also has the fourth lowest teacher student ratio in the country “Social development indicators have not been able to keep pace with economic development in this state of over 60 million people," UNICEF had observed about Gujarat back in 2013. Four years later, Maitreesh Ghatak of London School of Economics writes about Gujarat’s development model: “When it...

-Down to Earth Activists say that in 3 villages of Kalahand district, the Odisha forest department is imposing on the rights of forest dwellers to dispose bamboo, guaranteed under FRA More than two weeks after the cabinet cleared an amendment in the India Forest Act, 1927 (IFA) to deregulate trade of bamboo grown on non-forest land, forest dwellers from Odisha are complaining that the state forest department is not letting them...