-Newslaundry.com The circumstances of Nagaraju Koppula’s death point to reasons why our newsrooms continue to be incapable of absorbing people from disadvantaged backgrounds. In a heavily contractualised media industry, unions have become a bad word and journalists associated with unions have come to be looked on as trouble makers. It’s no surprise, then, that lawyers, academics and activists outnumbered journalists at the condolence-cum-stocktaking meeting called on by the Delhi Union of Journalists...

-The Indian Express While the Home Ministry has decided to put grants from US-based Ford Foundation under the “prior approval category” and also on its watch list in the interest of “national security”, some government-backed educational and research institutes that receive grants from the Foundation have said the US-based organisation helped build institutions in India. Among the beneficiaries of such grants are at least 10 that are also funded and supported by...

-Deccan Chronicle Hyderabad: Nearly 91 per cent of farmers in AP are debt-ridden. Unable to repay their debts to private moneylenders, farmers sometimes commit suicide, state Agriculture department statistics. This was informed to the AP Assembly too in the recent Budget Session by minister for agriculture P. Pulla Rao. Most of these farmers are tenants who number nearly 25 lakh. Of them, only 1.4 lakh get loans from banks. Nationalised banks, in...

-Economic and Political Weekly This paper contributes to the debate on the Draft National Health Policy 2015 by analysing and critiquing some of its key recommendations within the prevailing social, economic, and political context of the country. This policy seems to suggest that strategic purchasing of curative Health services from both the public and private sectors can enable India to achieve the goal of "universal Healthcare." The draft policy is based...

-Livemint.com Weather and prices continue to haunt modern agriculture and farmers, only 20% of who are covered by crop insurance in our country Two risks that have haunted modern agriculture for decades are weather and prices. Indian farmers have been one of the worst victims of the vagaries of nature and prices. They badly need protection, but less than 20% of them are covered by crop insurance. Insurance is an instrument...