-The Indian Express The Maha Agri Tech project attempts to mitigate agricultural risks by using data anlytics to plug gaps. Launched in January this year, the Maha Agri Tech project seeks to use technology to address various cultivation risks ranging from poor rains to pest attacks, accurately predict crop-wise and area-wise yield and eventually to use this data to inform policy decisions including pricing, warehousing and crop insurance. When farmers in...

-The New Indian Express Madras High Court in August gave permission for the project based on a  submission by Public Works Department that the area has plenty of groundwater. CHENNAI: Many localities have permanently lost their groundwater source due to excessive extraction of water to meet the city’s growing needs. Residents of Madambakkam, a residential area in south Chennai, are worried whether their case too will end up the same. Madambakkam panchayat...

The Hindu Business Line In an article on Monday, this writer pointed out how it is a challenging task to double farmers’ income, given the fall in output prices and the higher cost of farm inputs. In an interview, Ashok Dalwai, CEO, Doubling Farmers’ Income Committee, talks about the various measures the Centre is taking to ensure it is on the right track and reaches its target by 2022. According to...

-The Hindu The campaign to end open defecation can succeed only if it takes communities with it India’s declaration on the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi that its rural areas are now open defecation-free will be acknowledged around the world as a milestone in its developmental journey. Cleanliness and sanitation were central to Gandhi’s concerns for his vast number of impoverished countrymen, and should ideally have been pursued zealously by governments...

-PTI India tops the list of countries with 46.6 million children who are stunted, followed by Nigeria (13.9 million) and Pakistan (10.7 million), according to the Global Nutrition Report 2018 New Delhi: The government is reviewing parameters used to measure stunted growth in children to see how they can be “Indianised” according to anthropology of Indians, sources said. Stunting is the impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition,...