-Grist Media   The people of the Thar desert have their ways. This story unfolds over a year and recounts history through contemporary lives lived gently and with the land. It experiences first-hand the extraordinary old magic of growing lush crops in the desert. The land was the color of burnt caramel. It was flat and it was featureless: there was no tree in sight, no blade of grass, no ditch, no dune,...

-The Hindu   Forest cover loss has occurred at a period when area under jhum cultivation is declining, suggesting that the land use policy has been counterproductive to forests Two spectacular bamboo dances, one celebrated, the other reviled, enliven the mountains of Mizoram. In the colourful Cheraw, Mizo girls dance as boys clap bamboo culms at their feet during the annual Chapchar Kut festival. The festival itself is linked to the other dance:...

-The Hindu   Miners violate rules; panchayat witnesses 24-hour mining Thrissur (Kerala): Rampant clay mining has led to the destruction of paddy fields and acute shortage of water at Nenmanikkara panchayat, near here. The local farmers point out that the panchayat used to have more than 600 hectares of paddy field. According to the development report of the panchayat, 97.6 per cent of paddy fields have been destroyed. The clay mining has turned...

-The Hindu Chennai: For the past two months, farmers of five blocks in Tiruvallur have been working hard to double the output of pulses in the district. The farmers of Minjur, Cholavaram, Gummidipoondi, Ellapuram and Tiruvallur blocks have brought more land under rice fallow-crop cultivation. In this method, seeds of pulses, including green gram, are sown a few days before the paddy harvest and the seeds germinate due to the little moisture...

-The Hindu There is a general view that agriculture is not a remunerative profession. But for those who continue to do farming, there seems to be no choice. Either they leave the fields fallow or sell the lands for quick money. "Reasons for being unremunerative are many like high cost of inputs, inability to break even in profit, marketing etc. But in spite of all these problems there are people like...