As Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh fight the fury of flood caused by annual northeast monsoon, a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the natural disaster in Uttarakhand, which took place in June 2013, has been made available in the public domain recently. The CAG report discloses how various development activities in the state flouted guidelines issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Expert Committee on glaciers...
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UNEP lauds pesticide-free farming in Kerala -KA Martin
-The Hindu Kuruvai village in Palakkad credited with replacing pesticides with agroecology Kochi (Kerala): The success of a group of farmers in Kuruvai village in Palakkad district’s Vadakkencherry panchayat in cultivating paddy without chemical pesticides has come in for praise from United Nations Environment Programme. It finds a prominent place in a book on replacing highly hazardous pesticides with agroecology brought out by Pesticide Action Network International. The book was released at the...
More »Child-health indicators show worsening condition of children in Kerala
-TheNewsMinute.com If the child-health indicators released recently are to be believed, the status of child health in Kerala has worsened in the past few years. The infant mortality rate (IMR) of children aged below one per 1,000 live births is 12 now but it was 11 in 2001. Similarly, underweight children aged below five were 22.1% in 1992-93 as against 18.5% in 2013-14, The Times of India reports. The rate of Neonatal mortality...
More »Sowing poverty -Suman Sahai
-DNA The failure of Bt Cotton to ward off pests has pushed farmers to penury The whitefly attack that has devastated the cotton crop in parts of Punjab and Haryana and caused heavy losses to farmers was a disaster that was waiting to happen. Estimates say that some 8 lakh hectare of standing cotton has been destroyed causing damage worth crores of rupees, which has hit farmers hard. This disaster was waiting...
More »Nutritional benefits, awareness efforts may spur millets demand -B Krishna Mohan
-Financial Chronicle Return for farmers could grow as overall output of cereal crops has remained stable With growing health awareness and relatively lower costs, millets are making a strong comeback after experiencing negative growth for several years. Millets, which are coarse cereals, need less water and are hence preferred by farmers in areas where there is a shortage of water. The crop is also favoured because of its productivity and short growing...
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