-The Pioneer Local crop varieties are resilient but ignored Recent reports that well-known plant scientist Debal Deb has found a traditional rice variety in West Bengal that contains silver and has medicinal properties, has aroused public interest. Who knew that a rice grain, or for that matter any plant variety, could naturally assimilate the precious metal from the soil? The discovery is a humbling reminder of the many mysteries that nature continues...

-Theweekendleader.com/ Women's Feature Service Purulia (West Bengal): It was ironical that Purulia district often found itself on the West Bengal government's 'drought-hit' list when the average rainfall here is 1100mm-1500mm. The failure to conserve water as well as poor agricultural practices meant that despite back-breaking labour in the fields, farmers could only achieve six months' food sufficiency. Today, however, all that is changing thanks to a water management revolution led by ordinary village...

-Livemint.com The efforts of the government in revamping the crop insurance and land titling schemes are long-term solutions which will take time to bear results The agricultural sector is facing its worst moment in the last three decades. The last time India saw such distress caused by back-to-back deficient rains was during the drought of 1986-87 and 1987-88. The severity of the situation is evident from the stories of migration and...

-Livemint.com The perception of a farmer as a ‘dumb peasant’ in public policy lies at the core of the agrarian crisis Last month, the agriculture ministry informed Parliament that 2,806 farmers committed suicide in 2015 due to “agrarian reasons”. The data further showed that the highest number of suicides were recorded in Maharashtra (1,841), followed by Punjab (449), Telangana (342), Karnataka (107) and Andhra Pradesh (58), among others. What is common to...

-The Hindu In all this, more than 90 per cent of cases of diabetes are lifestyle-induced India is now in the midst of a diabetes epidemic, with an adult prevalence rate of nine per cent and almost 69 million people living with diabetes. In another 15 years, the figure is expected to rise to 101 million. In all this, more than 90 per cent of cases are lifestyle-induced. Individuals with diabetes do not...