-The Hindu Renowned trade union leader Dipankar Mukherjee (69), who passed away on Monday morning, was a brilliant parliamentarian with versatile capabilities. Elected to the Rajya Sabha in April 1994 from West Bengal as a Communist Party of India (Marxist) member, Mr. Mukherjee played an important role in intervening in all crucial economic and industrial policy-related issues during his 12-year-long parliamentary stint till 2006. Born in June 1943 in Kolkata, Mr. Mukherjee had...

-CNN-IBN   Shankarpura: Welcome to India's perhaps only tobacco-free village - Shankarpura in Haryana, that comes as a breath of fresh air, quite literally. While elders puffing the traditional hookah, and discussing worldly issues has been a part of Haryana's socio-cultural milieu, the village of Shankarpura chose to break away from the tradition by becoming perhaps the only village in the country which is free from tobacco.   Manpal Singh Selwal, Chairman of the Block...

Science and technology hold the key to developing low-input, high-output agriculture. The challenge is to use new technologies creatively and to make evidence-based decisions on the deployment of new technologies. Crop breeding is carried out to meet two broad objectives: one, to increase yields of a crop per se and, two, to protect the yield potential by developing crops resistant to diseases, pests and environmental extremes.  Both yield-enhancement and yield-stabilisation are...

-The United Nations On the occasion of World Day Against Child Labour, two United Nations independent human rights experts today highlighted that of the 215 million children working throughout the world, more than half are subjected to the worst forms of child labour, including sexual and labour exploitation. “One of the most abhorrent forms of child slavery is found in mining and quarrying, where children start work from the age of three,”...

RANWAN, India — In this north Indian village, workers recently dismantled stacks of burned and mildewed rice while flies swarmed nearby over spoiled wheat. Local residents said the rice crop had been sitting along the side of a highway for several years and was now being sent to a distillery to be turned into liquor. Just 180 miles to the south, in a slum on the outskirts of New Delhi, Leela...