-Livemint.com All our solutions in agriculture, besides management issues, are going to come from science and technology, says Deepak Pental, innovator of GM mustard Last week, the environment ministry’s regulator, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), cleared the commercial release of genetically modified (GM) mustard, leaving it to the government to take a final call. If approved, it will be India’s first food crop developed using transgenic technology, 15 years after Bt...

-Down to Earth By 2030, rice and wheat are likely to see about 6-10 per cent decrease in yields Rising temperature affects flowering and leads to pests and disease buildup. Flood and excess rain over a short duration of time cause extensive damage to crops. Extreme weather events have caught attention of agrarian experts and scientists alike and they are now focussing on natural farming to arrest the impacts of climate...

When it comes to child under-nutrition, the proportion of stunted and underweight children below 5 years has reduced in India during the last ten years. However, a rising trend has been observed in the prevalence of wasting among children below 5 years between the last two rounds of National Family Health Survey (NFHS). The recently released data from NFHS-4 indicates that the proportion of under 5 year children who are...

-Business Standard When machines don't recognise their thumb prints, Aadhaar turns into a device of exclusion Wardi Devi, a senior citizen, hails from a remote town of Rajasthan. She’s tried to enrol for the Aadhaar thrice and even paid Rs. 150 and Rs. 50 to agents while making the first two attempts. Tired of coughing out her hard earned money from her meagre wages, she refused to pay anything the third time....

-The Indian Express We have been numbed by a series of lies, myths and fictions about the project. India is at risk of becoming a surveillance state, with faint resistance from libertarians, intellectuals, political parties, the media, or the Supreme Court. Very soon, almost everyone will have an Aadhaar number, seeded in hundreds of databases. Most of these databases will be accessible to the government without invoking any special powers. Permanent surveillance...