-The New Indian Express The building permit will be cancelled and a fine will be imposed if the details submitted by the owner or licensee in the declarations are found to be wrong THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state cabinet meeting has decided to bring in an ordinance to amend the Kerala Municipality Act 1994 and Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 in order to speed up the issuance of building construction permits. As per the...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-Economic and Political Weekly     Sustained and focused efforts have to be made by the Tamil Nadu state government to provide relief and rehabilitation to the drought affected people of the state. S Rajendran (myrajendran@gmail.com) is with the Department of Economics, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu. Due to the failure of the north-east monsoon in December 2013, Tamil Nadu is witnessing drought like conditions this year, leading to poor agricultural productivity, rural distress,...