Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s statement in Parliament that the Government plans to shift subsidies from chemical fertilizers to organic manures has finally earned him some admiration from grassroots organisations working with small and marginal farmers in the country’s vast dry-lands. Pawar’s statement, if translated into policy action, may go a long way in improving the condition of some of India’s poorest farmers in the rain-fed areas which account for...

-PTI West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday lost her cool and stormed out of an interactive TV session here when members of audience asked her about the arrest of a professor for forwarding a cartoon lampooning her. "It is not a cartoon. We love the cartoon. Cartoon is a different thing. He is a CPI (M) man, He misused the e-mail of his society people without their consent. He forwarded...

The row over a cartoon featuring Dalit leader Ambedkar shows a lack of critical thinking in the Indian polity. The cartoon by Shankar Pillai that caused such pandemonium in the Indian Parliament on 11 May 2012 when various Dalit and non-Dalit members demanded its omission from a Class IX textbook was originally published in 1949. It depicts Dalit leader Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar with a whip riding a snail entitled ‘Constitution’...

-Rediff.com   Mankind is draining the earth's resources so quickly that the globe would be bled dry before the end of the century at this rate, a new report has revealed. According to the 2012 World Wildlife Fund's 'Living Planet Report' released this month, humans are living outside their means, depleting natural resources like forests, air and water 50 per cent faster than the planet can renew. If the trends aren't reversed, by...

The grand old  man of Indian cartooning RK Laxman has a delightful anecdote that embodies the charm of  political cartooning. Soon after the 1962 Sino-Indian war, Laxman lampooned Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his much-maligned defence minister Krishna Menon. That evening, Laxman got a call from the prime minister’s office. Picking up the phone, he was petrified of being at the receiving end of Nehru’s ire. He need not have...