-The Hindu For the 117 vacancies, 18,200 applications were received TIRUNELVELI (Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu): M.Phil. graduates, postgraduates, engineering graduates and others waited in a long queue in front of Tirunelveli District Central Cooperative Society as certificate verification and interview for 117 posts of salespersons in ration shops in the district began on Wednesday. Though the basic qualification for this post is just a pass in Plus Two, the educational qualification of the aspirants...

-Down to Earth Income inequality makes agrarian crisis challenging; inequality is worse among farmers than the formal economy Economists Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty recently concluded after a long study that inequality is at its peak in India. It is embedded in popular conscience: “Top 1 per cent of earners captured 22 per cent of total income in the country.” Their study–covering consumption, government accounts and income tax data from 1922...

-The Hindu Pratham’s 2017 study focuses on teenagers; flags falling enrolment with age Fourteen per cent of rural youth in the age group of 14-18 failed to identify the map of India, says the 2017 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), brought out by Pratham. Significantly, 36% of those surveyed did not know that Delhi is the capital of India. The report underlines, that 79% answered the questions ‘Which State do you live in?’...

-Down to Earth That explains why agrarian riots have increased by over 600 per cent in the last three years Whenever agriculture makes headlines, ironically, they hide more stories of distress. For sixth consecutive year, horticulture (fruits and vegetables) production has outstripped food grain production. Apparently, it is encouraging news given that farmers earn more from vegetables and fruits than food grains. But around the same time, reports of farmers dumping...

-Hindustan Times In 3 years, the Agarwals have prevented the land from being damaged five times Mumbai: Refraining from the usual practice of blaming authorities for destruction of mangroves and wetlands in Mumbai Metropolitan Region, this Navi Mumbai couple felt obligated to make a change. For the last three years, Sunil Agarwal, 55, and his wife Shruti, 50, residents of NRI Complex in Nerul, Navi Mumbai, have been guarding an 80-hectare wetland...