-PTI Govt last year launched PMUY scheme to provide 5 cr poor women with free LPG connections in 3 years New Delhi: The government has extended till September-end the time by which poor women wishing to avail of free cooking gas (LPG) connections must apply for the unique 12-digit biometric identification number Aadhaar. The government had in March this year mandated that anyone not having Aadhaar but desirous of availing free LPG connection...

A recent one-liner about the achievement of the present Central government goes like this: bovine has become ‘divine’ during the NDA’s rule. But why do such jokes originate? Media reports suggest that unprecedented aggression has taken place during the recent months in the name of the peaceful looking animal – cow. Mob lynching and killings by fringe groups have been reported from various parts of the country, especially targeting Muslims and...

-The Hindu The headline in a recent PTI report “Saving 2 tigers gives more value than Mangalyaan”’ was intriguing, since it said that saving two tigers yields a capital benefit of Rs. 520 crores, while Mangalyaan cost us Rs. 450 crores. The headline was both exciting and hurtful. Excited by it, I contacted Professor Madhu Verma of the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), Bhopal, and she shared with me both...

-Deccan Chronicle The slogan was that there would never again be scarcity of food because we can now make “bread from air”. There are two distinct futures of food and farming. One leads to a dead end. A dead planet: poisons and chemical monocultures spreading; farmers committing suicide due to debt for seeds and chemicals; children dying due to lack of food; people dying because of chronic diseases spreading due to nutritionally empty, toxic...

-Livemint.com A cow cess of even Re.1 per litre of petrol will be enough to generate funds that will exceed the entire annual budgets of several Union ministries About two weeks ago, Subramanian Swamy, a Rajya Sabha member from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called for a cow cess of Re1 on petrol to fund gaushalas or cow shelters across the country. Swamy made the comment towards the end of his speech...