-Agencies (New Delhi)/ Business Standard States can promote ZBNF under the two farm sector schemes - Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana and Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar on Monday made a case for promoting zero-budget natural farming (ZBNF) in states, saying it would help double farmers’ income by 2022. Aayog member Ramesh Chand, who is an expert in agriculture, said that such methods could be scaled up nationally only after...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Delhi is getting buried under mounds of garbage and Mumbai is sinking under water, but the government is doing nothing, an anguished Supreme Court said on Tuesday. It slapped fines on 10 states and two union territories for not filing their affidavits on their policies for solid waste management strategy. Expressing its helplessness over the situation, the top court lamented that when the courts intervene, the judges are attacked for...

-The Tribune Agrarian society vs a non-agrarian economy poses a huge political challenge. JUST how many farmers are there in India? This is not merely a statistical question. This is a question of policy and political significance. We have all grown up reading about India as an agrarian economy, with a majority of its population engaged in farming. Does that continue to be the case? Or has the number of farmers declined...

-Livemint.com While there are several creditable achievements, it is the deeper structural reforms where expectations from a strong government have not been met Amidst expectations of a magical transformation of the Indian economy, the Narendra Modi government took over the reins in May 2014. During the election campaign, people were led to believe that the Gujarat model of agricultural development, which delivered 8% growth in agriculture during fiscal years 2003-14, would be...

-The Hindu Paddy and sugarcane are India’s most water-guzzling crops — using up over half of the country’s total irrigation water resources — but procurement policies and water and power subsidies are skewing profitability and distorting crop decisions, says a recent study done by agricultural economist Ashok Gulati, and Gayathri Mohan. It has been published as a working paper by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). The ICRIER...