-The Times of India MUMBAI: The issue of farmers' suicide seems to have resurfaced with a vengeance in Maharashtra following the recent bout of unseasonal showers and hailstorms in the state. While sources working closely with the government have said that around 18 farmers have killed themselves between February 22 and March 18, social activists claim the figure could be between 80 and 100 - more than the average for every...

-Mumbai Mirror Instead of selling highly subsidised rice and wheat, we need to get food into hungry stomachs. The level of development of a country can be measured in many different ways. You could use average income of every person (i.e. GDP divided by population), or you can use average spending. You can count the number of millionaires or billionaires. You can count number of mobile connections, or cars on the road....

-The Indian Express Raised budgets are no guarantee of improved healthcare. With a new government in the offing, all suggested agendas for health are talking of an increase in health budgets and the fact that at 1 per cent of the GDP, government spending on public health in India is one of the lowest in the world; the rest is out of pocket expenditure. The US is a prime example of the...

-The Guardian Rice conservationist Debal Deb grapples with 'mindless Indian elite' to reintroduce genetically diverse, drought-tolerant varieties   Fifty years ago, every Indian village would probably have grown a dozen or more rice varieties that grew nowhere else. Passed down from generation to generation and family to family, there would have been a local variety for every soil and taste - rice that would grow well in droughts or deep floods, which had...

-The Hindu The entire spectrum of political leadership should take a pledge to transform the healthcare system of India in a decade As the countdown to the next general election begins, political parties are making multiple promises to pull in votes. All the party leaders are committing to transforming the lives of people. But health, ironically, does not feature high on their priority list, even though it is the central pillar of...