-The Hindu Banks continue denying loans to low-income groups, insisting on sticking to a standard EMI route even though they are dealing with a complex social issue. In July 2012, Pradeep Kumar, a 36-year-old resident of Ladpur, a shanty town that sits on the north-western periphery of Delhi, applied for an employment loan at the magistrate’s office in Kanjawala district. Under the Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Yojana or PMRY — a funding policy...

THE controversy over Maggi instant noodles has once again highlighted the issues plaguing food safety in India. Not only does the issue raise critical questions about safe food production by multinational companies such as Nestle but it also foregrounds the institutional fault lines when it comes to ensuring food safety. Frontline spoke to Sunita Narain, who heads the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the organisation instrumental in initiating...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Government has decided to pump in Rs 50,000 crore to develop basic irrigation infrastructure and water conservation models over next five years under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (Prime Minister Agriculture Irrigation Scheme) that is aimed to irrigate every farm in the country under its motto 'Har Khet Ko Pani' (water for every farm) to increase productivity through efficient use of water - 'more...

-India Today Experts claim that afforestation in the degraded areas include monoculture plantations which is not sufficient to create the ecosystem required for wildlife to thrive. Union environment minister may have a plan to regenerate the degraded forests of the country but that might not revive the lost wildlife and biodiversity because artificial ecosystem cannot be a substitute for the natural process. Forest experts have claimed that massive afforestation in the degraded...

-The Hindu Business Line India’s expenditure on health is just a little over 1% of its income Health care in India seems to be entangled in a vicious Cycle of low public investment and poor health outcomes. Our health achievements are dubious - home to a fifth of the world’s children who die before their fifth birthday and the highest number of mothers who die while giving birth. Poorer neighbours like Bangladesh...