-The Times of India CHENNAI: Scientists and academics have joined the chorus of protest against what they say is the systematic spread of intolerance and communal hatred in the country. They have expressed their concern in a petition addressed to the President, which they plan to post to his office in a day or two. About 135 scientists from leading academic and research institutions across the country and abroad have signed the...

-The Indian Express Punjab is a case study in agricultural and economic mismanagement in India From the breadbasket of India, Punjab has become a basket-case economy. Endowed with ample water and good soil, Punjab’s happy, progressive people had a dream that is now a distant memory. Punjab’s decline started with its trifurcation. In its bid to establish a separate identity, the poli-tical establishment obsessed over a religious-political agenda and steered the state...

-Hindustan Times The alleged lynching of a truck driver who was ferrying pulses by a mob recently in UP is a sad commentary about India’s inadequate price management systems. Wholesale prices, which plunged for the 11th straight month in September, could be masking a worrisome rise in food prices, leaving consumers to wonder why — even with declining inflation — their household budgets are spinning out of control. After onion, the prices...

-DNA State policies favouring certain food crops have rendered pulses forbiddingly expensive and the common man is feeling the pinch The huge spurt in dal prices, touching Rs180 per kilogram and even Rs200 in some cities, has come as a dampener to the festive season, and raised questions about the policies of the government. For some years now, India has been resorting to huge imports of pulses to meet domestic demand...

-Huffington Post NEW DELHI: Almost 300 cases of murder, assault and harassment relating to information activism have been recorded in the ten years since the Right To Information Act came into force on October 12, 2005, and Maharashtra has emerged as the most Dangerous state for RTI activists in the country. While there is no official data on RTI-related crime, figures complied by the Delhi-based Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative found 230 cases...