How many happy seeder machines are currently available in Haryana and Punjab? Against the backdrop of a recent advisory issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in response to the dense smog that engulfed the entire NCR since October this year, the above question seems pertinent. The happy seeder machine is considered as a magic bullet  to curb the menace of stubble burning during the wheat-paddy cropping cycle,...

-Hindustan Times The design of large injections of public funds for India’s agriculture economy needs to be informed with rigorous evaluations on what is effective for higher farm productivity. A wage subsidy for farm-labour is one modification that needs an evaluation, to generate evidence to inform how the MGNREGA policy generates employment when there is need, but without stress to farm production Indian agriculture is witnessing a period of complex socio-economic distress,...

-The Hindu If we oppose every solution to the problem of air pollution, how will we ever breathe clean air, asks the environmentalist Environmentalist Sunita Narain has been fighting for clean air for decades. The Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, with which she has been associated and now serves as director general, led the shift to compressed natural gas in Delhi, to reduce air pollution. Ms. Narain is on the statutory...

-TheWeek.in Contrary to what the Gujarat government says, records show that the Sardar Sarovar Project is far from complete Somabhai Raval was barely seven when prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone for the Sardar Sarovar Project at Kevadia Colony in Gujarat on April 5, 1961. A resident of Fatehpura village in Patan district of north Gujarat, Raval is not well educated. Till seven years ago, when construction of a minor...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: With cancer cases on the rise in the country, the government plans to set up 49 cancer centres in the next three years. The centres will be in addition to 31 already functioning and upgraded since 2014-15, when the government floated the scheme. The health ministry has drawn up a detailed project plan which will be reviewed by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) at a high-level...