-The Hindu Switching to renewable energy sources in the country's midday meal programme will save millions of rupees. But only a few kitchens are doing anything about it, says the author. This is a story of facts and figures and sheer size. Of an auditorium-sized room dense with hot steam from cooking. Of seven tonnes of cooked rice and four tanker-loads of steaming sambar that needed 70 pairs of hands for cutting...

-The Times of India LONDON: The fight against stunting - the world's most urgent nutritional challenge - got a big boost through a global agreement signed by world leaders in London on Saturday. The Global Nutrition for Growth Compact signed by countries and global leaders committed to reduce the number of children under five who are stunted by an additional 20 million in developing countries like India by 2020. At present stunting...

-The Hindu Steep rise in inputs and uncertainty over water availability are among factors Chennai: More and more small and marginal farmers are selling their meagre landholdings to become agricultural workers. This is how agriculturists, policy-makers and economists explain the finding in the Census for Tamil Nadu: Between 2001 and 2011, the strength of cultivators declined and the number of agricultural workers went up. In the 10-year period, there was a fall of...

-The Business Standard The latest suicide in Vidarbha underlines the need for flexible loan repayment norms for farmers Is it better to give compensation to dead farmers, or to provide loans and insurance to those who are alive? In the case of a majority of cotton farmers in Maharashtra, who are struggling against shrinking land size, production costs and debts, there is neither credit or insurance when alive nor compensation on death. Farmers caught...

-The Hindu JAGDALPUR: With semi-automatic weapons slung over their shoulders, these soldiers are more than just patrolling arterial village roads. They are in the midst of full-scale battles in which several people, mostly non-combatants, are getting killed. Forces have been mobilised in their thousands; dehydrated soldiers are getting evacuated by the Indian Air Force; corpses are removed in huge tractors meant for transporting farm produce; and Maoists are intensifying coordination at...