-The Indian Express Maharashtra, according to sources, continues to witness the highest number of farmer suicides. The state saw an 18 per cent jump between 2014 and 2015 — from 2,568 to 3,030. New Delhi: FARMER suicides in the country spiked by over 40 per cent between 2014 and 2015. While 2014 saw 5,650 farmer suicides, the figure crossed 8,000 in 2015, government sources told The Indian Express. Maharashtra, according to sources,...

-The Hindu New Delhi: Parliament’s Standing Committee on Agriculture may have expressed concern at the unscientific and excessive use of pesticides in agriculture that pose a threat both to the environment and human health. But experts say their judicious use, combined with safe agricultural practices, is the only way out as the country’s growing demand for food cannot be met through organic farming. In its recently presented report in Parliament for 2015-16,...

-Business Standard Meteorologists said the slump could push the cumulative monsoon into the negative zone for the first time New Delhi: The southwest monsoon, which has had a stupendous run so far in 2016, has entered a weak phase for the first time since it gathered steam in July over most parts of the country. Eastern, northeastern India and parts of central India have been spared from this lull, which might continue...

-The Indian Express On Independence Day, we salute our freedom fighters. We also remember Lal Bahadur Shastri who gave us the slogan, jai jawan, jai kisan.   PM Modi needs to move from slogans to action to transform agriculture.   Atal Bihari Vajpayee expanded the slogan to jai jawan, jai kisan, jai vigyan. The present government has an array of slogans for the farmers. Prime Minister Modi has coined so many — swacchh bharat,...

Rising prices of dal: How to deal with it? The 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. In India, however, ordinary citizens are under enormous duress due to the skyrocketing prices of dal/ lentils since the last one year. The website of Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs shows that dal prices varied across PLAces. For example, the...