-Outlook A parliamentary committee has picked holes in the ambitious agriculture debt waiver and debt relief scheme of the UPA government saying it could not achieve its goals due to a variety of reasons including violation of guidelines and poor monitoring. Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in its draft report on the scheme said there was a "flagrant display of financial and administrative indiscipline by the Department of Financial Services (of the...

-Grain.org "We take care of the cow and the cow takes care of us," says Marayal, a farmer in Thalavady, Tamil Nadu. Her two cows produce 6 to 10 litres of milk a day, which she sells for 30-40 cents per litre. Across India, there are millions of backyard dairy Farmers like Marayal. Each owning just one or two cows, these Farmers supply millions more families and hundreds of thousands of informal...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Farmers are being advised to protect standing potato, wheat and masur crop from weather vagaries. A dip in temperature and rains have resulted in pest and fungal infestations at some places across the northern and western India. Reports of yellow rust on wheat fields have been reported across the north Indian states. "We have detected yellow rust in wheat fields of Punjab, Haryana and Jammu," said Indu...

-The Business Standard Way back in 1986, Rajiv Gandhi launched the Ganga Action Plan. But years later, after much water (sewage) and money have flowed down the river, it is as bad as it could get. Why are we failing, and what needs to be done differently to clean this and many other rivers? According to recent estimates by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), faecal coliform levels in the mainstream of...

-Down to Earth Faced with crop losses because of erratic rainfall and extreme weather, tribal Farmers of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh turn to bewar and penda forms of cultivation that keeps them nourished all times of the year, but government agencies are bent on rooting out these farm practices Hariaro Bai Deoria should have been a worried person this year-an untimely spell of rain late last October flattened her paddy crop, and...