-The Hindu Business Line An Odisha organisation is working hard to preserve traditional foods and prevent the mainstream from swallowing up local knowledge systems Inside a candy pink-and-yellow shamiana, a group of children in blue uniforms line up in front of stalls heaving with different kinds of foods. Tubers in shades of brown, beige and cream; pink and red berries; tiny yellow, orange and red tomatoes; leaves of many sizes and shapes;...

-The Hindu  The Centre’s coercive method has worked. Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the two States that were holding out against pressure from New Delhi to implement the National Food Security Act (NFSA), have also fallen in line. By threatening to raise the price at which it was allocating foodgrains if they did not implement the law, the Centre has managed to get these two States to agree to the implementation of the Act...

-The Hindu In all the States belonging to the Hindi heartland, less than one per cent of Hindus eat beef/buffalo meat. The number of Indians eating beef and buffalo meat went up from 7.51 crore in 1999-2000 to 8.35 crore in 2011-12 while the total household consumption of beef/buffalo meat went down from 4.44 crore kg per month to 3.67 crore kg in the same time period. These findings come from National Sample...

-The Hindu New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday sought the Centre’s response on a plea that government should take measures to ensure that the National Anthem is respected, including that it should be sung only in front of persons who either understand it or are instructed about its meaning. A Bench led by Justice Dipak Misra sought the Centre’s stand on a PIL petition filed by Shyam Narayan Chouskey seeking a...

-The Hindu Business Line The NITI Aayog should revive district-level planning in order to implement the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution While the Planning Commission, which was virtually an executive arm of the Union government, stands abolished, the District Planning Committee (DPC), a constitutional institution mandated “to prepare a draft development plan for the district as a whole” with a focus on resource endowments, environmental conservation, infrastructural development and spatial...