The market price of potatoes in the forthcoming season, starting December, may reach Rs700 per quintal in March, according to agriculture economists. The economists have also predicted that the price of traditional basmati will range between Rs2,500 and Rs3,400 per quintal during the October-December period this year, which is the peak harvesting season for paddy. The forecasts were made by agriculture economists of Govind Ballabh Pant Agriculture University, led by Dr Jagdish...

Long before they gained currency as the real-life counterparts of the Na'vis portrayed by Hollywood blockbuster "Avatar", the author of the Vedanta verdict — Justice S H Kapadia — had made clear about how he saw the Dongaria Kondhs, who are officially classified as "primitive tribal group". Kapadia, now chief justice of India, described this tribe from Orissa as a people "living on grass". His unflattering, almost dismissive description came...

AS CONCERN for the ecosystem runs high all across the world, a small, mountainous state in India’s northeast — Sikkim, has taken a step ahead and declared to go completely organic by the year 2015. What this means is the total phasing out of chemical inputs from agriculture. Sikkim has long been an ecologically conscious state with initiatives such as a comprehensive ban on plastic, bio-medical and chemical waste in...

Every year, India adds the population of Australia to its already staggering ranks of 116.1 crore people. Every 10 years, we add the population of Brazil — the fifth most populous country in the world. As yet another World Population Day comes around on July 11, and India stands poised to eclipse China as the most populous country of the world, the government is Gingerly attempting to bring incentive-based family planning...

With global warming now becoming a permanent fixture in the Indian agriculture landscape, state governments and insurance firms are rushing to provide crop insurance for farmers. Take the case of Rajasthan, which is now looking at extending agri-insurance cover across its 33 districts this year compared to 26 last year. Ditto with Himachal Pradesh and Haryana which would run the Rashtriya Krishi Bima Yojana from this kharif onwards. The cover...