-The Times of India ATRI/ WAZIRGANJ (Gaya): For 50-year-old landless farmer Ramchandra Yadav, alias Sadhuji, voting is the last thing on his mind, as he looks at his dry farm in Tetua village in the Atri assembly segment. All he can think of is how he will make ends meet, because this season's harvest will be extremely poor due to the depleted monsoon in Gaya and in many other parts of...

-The Hindu ‘Safe Travels!’ we wish those travelling to distant places. It is an unhappy situation that in India, we need to wish many a woman ‘safe travels’ as she steps out to work. Well publicised instances of violence against women working in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector during workplace-related travel as well as some not so broadly-known experiences of women in blue collar work, point to a problem that...

-PTI The govt would also increase monthly widow pension from Rs 500 to Rs 2,000 in the families of farmers who had committed suicide Haveri (Karnataka): Providing succour to distressed farmers, the Karnataka government today announced waiver of interest and penal interest on crop loans from cooperative Banks for the current fiscal and hike in compensation from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh to families of farmers who had committed suicide. The...

-PTI NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal on Friday asked the government to "tell one place" where the Ganga is clean and said that despite spending huge sums, the situation has gone from bad to worse. Expressing open displeasure over the government's lackadaisical approach towards ensuring cleanliness and uninterrupted flow of the river, it said "we take it that almost nothing has happened in reality." The green panel, which was asked to act...

-Economic and Political Weekly India needs to find an optimal patenting regime that will safeguard incentives for innovation while simultaneously ensuring that medicines are available at reasonable prices. Viswanath Pingali (viswanath@iimahd.ernet.in) is at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Chirantan Chatterjee (chirantan@gmail.com) is at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. We gratefully acknowledge several discussions with Kensuke Kubo. Please click here to access the article. ...