-The Indian Express This forecast, following a joint exercise by IIT Gandhinagar and the India Meteorological DepARTment (IMD), for the first time, provides a country-wide soil moisture forecast at seven and 30-day lead times. New Delhi: With the rabi season around the corner, a countrywide forecast prepared at the end of the monsoon season suggests deficit soil moisture conditions are likely in Gujarat, Bihar, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu and southern Andhra Pradesh. This forecast,...

-The Hindu Business Line Also moots farming of GM species in closed systems Kochi: A draft national policy on mariculture has mooted mariculture zones by demarcating special areas in the sea for activities such as cage farming, bivalve farming, pen culture, seaweed culture, hatcheries and nurseries based on scientific criteria. The draft policy was formulated by an expert committee formed by the National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB) with A Gopalakrishnan, Director of Central...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government has betrayed farmers on its promise of providing remunerative minimum support prices (MSP) by announcing floor prices for rabi crops for 2018-19 far below the promised C2+50 per cent, All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) said on Thursday. “What is notable is that this comes just after the much-hyped claims after farmers’ protests on Tuesday that the BJP will address all concerns of...

-Mumbai Mirror The Modi government says it will double farmers’ real earnings by 2022, but so far, it has only delivered committees and reports. In early 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to double farmers’ income by 2022, and the government subsequently set up an inter-ministerial committee led by Ashok Dalwai, additional secretary in the agriculture ministry, to prepare a roadmap. About two weeks ago, the committee submitted its fourteenth and final...

-The Indian Express A policeman, one of nearly 2,500 manning the border Tuesday, stood atop the UP Gate flyover as pART of bandobast. From his vantage point in front of the water cannon, he could see a sea of increasingly impatient farmers ready to march into Delhi. One of them was his father. New Delhi: The yellow barricades erected at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border on Tuesday to prevent farmers from entering the...