-The Hindu MADURAI: Muthumari's day starts at 4 a.m. She milks her cows in the cowshed behind the house and keeps cans of milk ready to be collected by a pickup van from a private dairy company. Then she turns to her household chores and sends her children off to school. Packing the day's food for herself, she proceeds towards the fields in her village at Udayanpatti. She is not just a...

The poor man’s rich grain is getting richer – a new study published in the Journal of Nutrition shows that a variety of new pearl millet (more commonly known as bajra), which was conventionally bred to be 10% richer in iron helped iron-deficient children under the age of 3 years, to absorb enough of this crucial mineral to meet their physiological requirements. (See links below for full text and a...

-The Hindu Aimed shielding political parties, the Bill draws wide protests The Manmohan Singh government on Monday introduced the Right to Information (Amendment Bill), 2013 in the Lok Sabha overriding outrage and protests by ordinary users of the law as well as information activists, many of whom inundated the Speaker's office with appeals and applications urging Meira Kumar to refer the Bill to a select committee. The RTI Act was among a slew...

-The Hindu Collector asks people to have a blueprint for making their village free from open defecation Vellore (Tamil Nadu): Gram sabhas conducted four times in a year - on Republic Day, May Day, Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanthi - are meant to be an open forum to enable public to demand schemes, especially on basic amenities required for the villages and benefits from welfare schemes. But, in reality, the public, especially...

-The Hindu Hard work, dedication and some innovative thinking to make use of available resources for getting maximum benefit are practised by few farmers. Mr. Poornaand Venkatesh Bhat from Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka is an exception. A contractor-turned-farmer by choice, he started cultivation in 21 acres but soon had to give it up since his Land was bought by the Government to set up a naval base. He invested the money he received...