-Hindustan Times Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh’s first “cashless” village is actually “waterless”, prompting villagers to adopt a novel initiative of sourcing water through rooftop water pipes from tubewells located in their agricultural fields 1,000 to 2,000 feet away. Thick black water pipes running over the rooftops and treetops in the village, coming from the agriculture fields might be mistaken as electric wires at first sight. “We don’t care about cashless status as our...

-Economic and Political Weekly Shantanu De Roy (shantanudr2004@gmail.com) teaches at the Department of Policy Studies, TERI University, New Delhi. It was argued that economic liberalisation would ensure a favourable shift in the terms of trade for agriculture in India, enabling producers to plough back surplus from cultivation to make long-term improvements on land, and raise agricultural productivity and growth rate. Contrary to expectations, there was no noticeable improvement in the terms of...

-IANS   Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has so far granted 4.09 lakh individual titles and community titles under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, a state minister said on Friday. “While 4,03,760 individual titles have been distributed, 5,891 community titles have been settled under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006,” Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Development Minister Lal Bihari Himirika told the assembly. The state government...

-Hindustan Times/ IndiaSpend India may have to import milk in four years, if it cannot increase fodder supply for its 299 million cattle, as rising pressure on land reduces pastures nationwide. Spurred by rising incomes, a growing population and changing food preferences, the demand for milk and milk products will grow to at least 210 million tonnes by 2021–22, a rise of 36% over five years, according to government estimates. To meet...

-The Indian Express Suspension of work during festivals to ensure a cleaner Ganga and cow vigilantism, which has led to closure of several abattoirs and brought raw hide supply to half, have made things worse. Kanpur: The Namami Ganga Project has hurt leather workshop owner Aqueel Ahmed, 27. His earnings have dwindled with the crackdown on factories polluting the river in Kanpur’s Jajmau area. A kilometre away, priest Ramesh Prasad Tiwari,...