-The Hindu With crops hit by drought and the TO-1057 seed, our reporter visits Narayangaon, among the country’s largest tomato growing regions, and finds farmers struggling to cope with the failed harvest but still faithful to the fruit Last week, the grey rain clouds over the Sahyadris seemed full of promise. A few light showers, and colour was slowly returning to parched leaves and the dry earth was beginning to yield again....

-The ASIan Age Bhubaneswar: Traditionally-cultivated minor millets are the major sources of sustenance for lakhs of tribals and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers living in southern and western parts of Orissa. Over 170 varieties of millets are cultivated in the hilly and forested areas in the state. Some of the prominent minor millets largely cultivated in Orissa include sorghum (jawari) spiked millet (Bajra) and finger millet (Ragi/Mandika), among others. The nutritional value of the minor...

-The Times of India RANCHI: Jharkhand government has bagged appreciation from the union ministry of rural development (MoRD) for its effective implementation of MGNREGA schemes. The centre has allowed 50 more blocks-- highest in the country-- to be included in CFT project (Convergence of MGNREGS, National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) and Cluster Facilitation Team (CFT)). Centre directed other states to take lesson from Jharkhand model and implement some of the best...

-The Times of India HYDERABAD: The Telangana government on Tuesday sounded a "global emergency" after an active strain of wild polio virus (P2 strain) was detected in a water sample collected from a drain, prompting it to airlift two lakh vaccines from Geneva to innoculate more than three lakh children in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy district as a "preventive measure" from Wednesday. Vaccine Derived Polio Virus (VDPV) strain has not been seen...

-The Hindu The RCEP is a regional trade agreement being negotiated between the 10 ASEAN countries currently in Auckland. Humanitarian aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has warned India that the country will not remain ‘pharmacy of the developing world’ if the proposals in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement (RCEP) are adopted. The RCEP is a regional trade agreement being negotiated between the 10 ASEAN countries currently in Auckland. MSF Access Campaign...