Eminent citizens, farmers and environmental activists on Friday threatened to launch a sustained agitation to oppose entry of BT Maize crop into Punjab and prevent any attempt to jeopardise the country's food sovereignty. This was announced at a press conference organised in response to reports that Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had supported cultivation of BT Maize as part of the State Government's crop diversification mandate. Kheti Virasat Mission chief Umendera Dutt...

This is a story of a bunch of gritty women in a small Andhra village who used their traditional resources and knowledge to fight poverty and create a source of livelihoods for others. A group of 34 women, most of them illiterate, at village Pyalayaram, which falls in Deccan region of Zaheerabad mandal in the state of Andhra Pradesh.decided to set up a community grain bank with a little help...

Parinathi, a Non Government Organisation is bringing smiles on the faces of farmers in 5 GPs of Kadur taluk by providing technical assistance.    It has been taking up watershed works, promoting organic farming and self-employment to economically backward families for the last 2 years. The organisation will work for the implementation of various projects worth Rs 80 lakh under the Watershed Development Fund of NABARD in the last four years. Schemes...

Both sides will have to rise above politics and focus on the water crisis, which requires difficult and bitter solutions.  As the long hot summer sizzles, one's thoughts in Lahore and Amritsar turn to water. It is scarce on both sides of the border. When the British finally and fully took over the Punjab in 1849, their thoughts turned to the possibility of engineering for agriculture. In the 1860s, they...

Getting 55 weddings done in 90 minutes flat won't rank as a record. Getting them done at no cost to the very poor families involved might qualify as one. That these are actually part of a successful Maharashtra government programme surely sets this up for a Guinness Book entry. The 55 couples in Nandura tehsil of Buldhana district are all Muslims. And there's a dual minority angle to it —...