-Inclusion.in There is good news. And there’s bad news. The good news first. There’s been a bumper wheat crop and the granaries are overflowing. And the bad news? Where do we begin? A lot of that grain will rot. Millions will still remain hungry. Heavily in debt and distressed, farmers are committing suicide. Food prices are soaring. There’s more… Farmers don’t have money. Their land is too small and isn’t yielding much. Fertilisers and...

-The Telegraph On a full-attendance day at a business process outsourcing centre in a village in Uttar Pradesh, 40 boys and girls work on computers, each of their desktops powered by rooftop solar panels that turn sunlight into electricity. Their workplace, a two-storey building, is the only structure in Sonari, a village of about 1,700 people and located about 50km from Lucknow on the road to Sitapur, where electricity is guaranteed nine...

Punjab’s agricultural sector grew at 1.6 per cent during the 11th Plan against the national average of 3.41 per cent. The growth is tardy owing to near saturation in productivity. The rural debts in Punjab are estimated to be Rs 35,000 crore. The number of indebted rural households in Punjab is 66 per cent, third highest in the country after Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The Government of India’s debt...

-The Hindustan Times The flood situation in Assam worsened on Thursday with new areas coming under water and the toll reaching 22. Altogether, 21 districts have been affected following the week-long incessant rains. The river has breached embankment at five places, affecting 1,744 villages across nine districts and 70,000 hectares of crop land. The situation in Kamrup, Nalbari and Bongaigaon in lower Assam worsened on Thursday, after the tributaries of Brahmaputra breached their...

Two ways to advertise your modernity in India today: first is to carry an iPad, second is to declare that you are firmly on the side of 'reforms' There are two quick ways to advertise your modernity in India today. The first is to carry an iPad when you go for meetings, even if all you do with it is read email; and the second is to declare that you are...