-The Times of India Uttarkashi: To battle the declining child sex ratio in Uttarkashi district, the administration has marked 132 villages under red zone and has put local accredited social health activist (ASHA) workers on its radar. The action was taken after report of the past three months on child birth revealed that not a single girl child was born in 132 villages of the district which delivered a total of 216...

-The Hindu The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill is a twin attack on accountability and the idea of federalism “Amendments” have haunted the Right to Information (RTI) community ever since the RTI Act came into effect almost 14 years ago. Rarely has a law been so stoutly defended by activists. It is not possible to pass a perfect law. But it was a popular opinion strongly held by most RTI activists that...

-Business Standard/ India Spend For the first time since Independence, India saw a shift of surplus labour from agriculture to the non-agricultural sectors Although income mobility improved country-wide in the seven years to 2012, the progress was unequal between states, while the likelihood of children pursuing the same occupation as their fathers declined for those employed in the low productivity agricultural sector, noted a January 2019 study on economic mobility. Farmers’ children were...

-The Times of India Salem: Salem Periyar University and University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, have jointly conducted a research on the public distribution system (PDS) in selected rural areas of Salem district since 2017. At the end of two-year research, the team has found that the PDS has great support among its users in rural areas and contributed positively to food security Vice-chancellor of Periyar University P Kolandaivel said, “In the coming months,...

-Business Standard He said India's food security was expected to sustain for a long time, as foodgrains production was growing much faster rate as compared to the population growth NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand on Tuesday said public perception of growing harmful effects of chemicals in food cannot be addressed by organic farming or zero budget farming alone. Chand said the plant protection industry should play an active role in assuring consumers...