-Frontline As rural Karnataka reels under an unprecedented wave of suicides by farmers, the State administration looks on, unwilling to address the reasons that have rendered rural livelihoods fragile. DEATH stalks rural Karnataka. In the 41 days between July 1 and August 10, as many as 245 farmers committed suicide, an average of six a day; since April 1, 284 farmers have taken their lives. As a bewildered State government gropes...

-Deccan Herald Those who sipped a cup of Yashoda’s home-brewed tea have never been unimpressed. The special tea is prepared using locally available herbs and aromatic leaves. Yashoda and her husband Chandraprakash of Biligerepalya village in Tiptur taluk of Tumakuru district are well-known for their innovative activities that include value addition of agricultural produces. Until 2008, the couple were into chemical farming, much like everyone else around them. At a time when they were grappling...

-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...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: The Tea Board of India is giving a big push to Organic Tea production in the country for the first time by providing 25 per cent more subsidy than the normal subsidy of 30 per cent. This has for the first time been incorporated in the Twelfth Plan by the board to give a boost to Organic Tea, which has been gaining momentum in the country. Besides, it has a...

-DNA India Constant decrease in investment on research and development blamed for carelessly conceived schemes A fishing project in the deserts of Rajasthan, cold storage facilities for bananas in Maharashtra's no-banana Pune district, milk coolers in Gujarat's Sagbara region where there is no milk production and no electricity either… Those are just some of the examples of carelessly conceived government schemes to bolster farm growth at a time share of the...