-The Hindustan Times About 1.98 lakh farmers committed suicide in India between 2001 and 2012 as the benefits of high growth failed to trickle down to the rural areas, says the India Rural Development Report 2012-13 released on Thursday. Indebtedness and lenders confiscating land have been attributed as the main causes of the farmers' deaths. Around two-third of the farmer suicides were reported from Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Depicting the...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The environment ministry has slapped a Rs 200-crore fine on the Adani Group's Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone for damaging mangroves, creeks and the local environment at the project site. The company's shares fell 6.4%. The penalty was recommended by a committee headed by Sunita Narain, director general of Centre for Science and Environment, set up by the environment ministry. The report was submitted to environment...

-The Indian Express Bangalore: It was a Lok Sabha byelection fought and won by fulfilling a basic, daily need. In the Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha constituency in the suburbs of the city, winning Congress candidate D K Suresh offered the people a straightforward deal- bottled drinking water dispensed through innovative "water ATMs". Suresh, the brother of Congress leader D K Shivakumar, set up 33 water ATMs, dispensing kiosks attached to reserve...

-Economic and Political Weekly The government has notified a Draft Land Reforms Policy which, on paper, has all the requisites of an earnest programme. Yet, the near total failure of earlier efforts at land reforms in India leave little room for hope that something substantial will at last be done to combat landlessness. Harsh Mander (manderharsh@gmail.com) is with the Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi, and works with survivors of mass violence,...

-The Business Standard As the southwest monsoon enters the last leg of its four-month journey, 2013 will be remembered as one of the best years in overall quantum and distribution of rainfall across India. More than expected rain so far have pushed up kharif sowing in a big way, which will not only add its bit to gross domestic product (GDP) growth but blunt inflationary pressures. If the intensity is maintained, India...