-Scroll.in The government must empower these once proud people – now reduced to lining up for free meals – by giving them real rights to forest resources. Palghar district in Maharashtra is once again in the news for malnutrition-induced deaths of Adivasi children. The state government is in a flurry – with the governor having taken up the matter – and will likely focus on better delivery of its nutrition and health...

-Livemint.com Pulses are important from the perspectives of food security, environmental sustainability and balanced nutrition Most pulses such as pigeon pea (tur dal), black gram (urad), green gram (mung), field beans (waal), moth beans (matki) and horse gram (kulith) are native to the Indian subcontinent and have been an integral part of our diet for centuries. However, the single-minded focus on cereals over the last 50 years—the green revolution in wheat and...

-The Hindu Without doubt, India needs to go forward with bio-safe agricultural practices, but the farmers need to be helped to make them sustainable Reshma religiously mixes cow dung and manure in the soil in her farm, hoping for a better yield at least this time around. Reshma is a 22-year old smallholder farmer in a village outside Hyderabad. She is a part of the growing army of farmers in India who...

-PTI New Delhi: Expressing their resistance against GM-mustard, thousands of people joined ‘Sarson Satyagraha’ in 18 states on Gandhi Jayanti today, asserting the hybrid variety is “unwanted, unneeded and unsafe“. The ‘Satyagraha’ took various forms ranging from Gram Sabha resolutions to remain GM-free to take part in a mustard festival, organised by the Delhi government to gather public feedback on GM mustard. Eminent citizens, scientists, film personalities, farmer leaders, artists, and activists took...

-The Hindu Recent years have been a watershed in the public health programme in India. We have managed to eradicate diseases such as polio and tetanus, reduced maternal and child mortality rates significantly, halved the prevalence of tuberculosis and malaria and increased the life expectancy for both adults and children. These achievements reflect the unflinching efforts of the Indian government and all stakeholders in the past two decades to ensure health...