-AFP NURJAHANPALLY: When Mahatma Gandhi took up the baton for home-grown cotton a century ago, he may not have realised the devastating impact its cultivation would have on the land he so loved. Cotton is a thirsty plant and parts of the country are drought-prone. But the intensive farming process for cotton leaches the soil and requires high pesticide and fertiliser use that pollutes further downstream. Now in Warangal, dotted with statues to...

-The Hindu Patiala (Punjab): It is an illegal but accepted practice here to employ agricultural labourers and their family against a loan The blaring gurdwara loudspeakers at Punjab’s Gandav village confirmed the worst fears of Jasbir Kaur. They were announcing that the recently-widowed young woman would lose the one-room shed she calls home if she was unable to pay back the Rs. 80,000 her husband had borrowed from the village landowner. With...

-DD News Indian Union Cabinet has approved Rs 4,000 crores proposal for multipronged strategy for the prevention and control of Japanese Encephalitis and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome. The meeting chaired by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh approved the proposal of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare recommended by the Group of Ministers. The scheme will be implemented in 60 priority districts for a period of 5 years from this year. This scheme will...

-Outlook Expanding the ambit of its 1997 Vishaka verdict, the Supreme Court today directed all regulatory bodies like BCI and MCI, which regulate different professions, to set up a committee to deal with all cases of sexual harassment at the workplace. A three-judge bench headed by Justice R M Lodha directed regulating bodies and all the institutions affiliated to them to implement the guidelines framed in the Vishaka case within two months. The...

-PTI Melbourne: India has been ranked at a poor 115 by a global survey which looked into the level of economical empowerment of women in 128 countries.  The list was topped by Australia and followed by three Scandinavian countries -- Norway, Sweden and Finland.  At the bottom of the list were Yemen, Pakistan, Sudan and Chad.  The research done by an international consulting and management firm Booz & Company ranked India at 115 and...