-The Hindu Six years after it was set up to challenge mainstream media discourse, kafila.org has not only provided an alternative space for critical writing, but also offered a radical model of editor-less, ad-free, voluntary journalism with a zero marketing budget Aditya Nigam, an academic and activist on the left, had long been frustrated with the nature of the Indian media. In 2002, soon after the Gujarat ‘massacres', he was a part of...

-The Business Standard UN report shows holes in govt's food security proposal The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has worked out the cost of malnutrition to the world economy: about five per cent of its annual gross domestic product, or $3.5 trillion, in terms of foregone production and health expenditure. Even more important is the FAO's assessment of potential gains from investment in enhancing the nutritional standards of the population....

Groundwater, which irrigates half of Indian agriculture and provides 85% of rural drinking consumption, is an increasingly scarce resource. There is a growing understanding that it must be approached as a common property resource for collective benefit. It is best understood and managed by those who live near them and use them rather than agencies who visit sporadically - that is the central premise of efforts around participatory groundwater management....

-The Business Standard Land acquisition in Chhattisgarh for a highway has triggered complaints of fraudulent land transfers It's difficult to imagine someone claiming your house to be his own, and selling it to a third party without you getting an inkling of it. But this seems to be a routine affair in Chhattisgarh. Village Teka in Pithora block of Mahasamund district has no Naxals. It is as normal as it can be. But...

-The Hindu Attempt to question practices invites wrath of dominant caste Madurai: Multiple forms of discrimination exist in Vadugapatti village near Usilampatti, where a 12 year-old- Dalit boy was made to carry his footwear on his head recently. Dalits can neither walk on the streets of caste Hindus with their footwear on nor can they enter common pathways on bicycles. If they violated the rule they had to face the wrath of the...