-The News Minute Rice Diversity Blocks in Kerala and five other states preserve over 1,000 indigenous varieties of rice that were at risk of being lost. In the Indian subcontinent, the birthplace of paddy, the colours of the crop’s many varieties are as diverse as the land, its people, languages, cultures, costumes, dialects and so on. But most of that variety was lost, when farmers were asked to forgo indigenous varieties...

-Business Standard Delhi High Court has now asked the Punjab government to file a report on the steps being taken to halt this crop burning New Delhi: Punjab's 20-Day 'crop stubble burning' is getting perilous. Delhi High Court was informed on Thursday that the crop scorching is yielding about 10,000 tonnes of particulate matter, including 9,000 tonnes of PM 2.5.&NBSp; PM2.5 are tiny particles in the air that reduce visibility and cause...

-Village Square The Maldharis of the vast Banni grasslands in Gujarat show how people cope with enforced change caused either by natural forces or human intervention and how vulnerability can be turned into opportunity. Banni, located along the northern border of Kachchh district in Gujarat, is a vast stretch of 3,847 sq km area of dry grasslands. Known for its pastoralist activities for centuries, the area is regarded as Asia’s largest tropical...

-Scroll.in Panchayats have no funds to hire and pay hordes of workers forced to return home from cities. Demonetisation has exposed the fragile state of the government’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. In Uttar Pradesh, in particular, an ever-burgeoning army of migrant labourers returning to their villages for lack of work in the cities, as a direct result of the cash crisis, has led to a mad scramble for employment...

-NDTV Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh: The cash crunch in the aftermath of the government's ban on Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes is bad enough in metros with block-long queues. But how bad is it in the small towns of India? Deep in eastern Uttar Pradesh, in Vindhyachal and Mirzapur, NDTV did a reality check. And the results were staggering. The journey started at 9 am, outside the ICICI bank ATM in the...