-The Hindu Business Line   Pokkali cultivation gets help from Krishi Vigyan Kendra and fisheries research body KOCHI: Kerala's Pokkali farming, a unique saline tolerant rice variety that is facing extinction, could be on a revival path if efforts of Krishi Vigyan Kendra (Ernakulam) under the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute bear fruit. This old and traditional method of cultivation has been reduced to less than 1,000 hectares in the coastal areas of Ernakulam...

-The Guardian   Tamil Nadu farmer produces bumper crop four times larger than average using system of rice intensification An Indian farmer has set a state and possibly a national record for growing rice using a neglected method of cultivation that has been dismissed by academic researchers and received little financial backing from agribusiness. According to Jaisingh Gnanadurai, joint director of agriculture in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, farmer S Sethumadhavan from...

-The Telegraph   Ranchi: Jharkhand has started to digitise its public distribution system (PDS) as a part of the National Informatics Centre's (NIC) pan-India initiative to monitor foodgrain theft, but for now only on a pilot basis across six blocks of as many districts. Part of the larger Rs 160-crore central project, Jharkhand is starting with distributing tablets and hand-held computers to 200 of the state's 22,500 PDS dealers in blocks of Ormanjhi...

-Live Mint   Recent Maoist violence highlights the conflicts that centre around the model of India's economic growth   New Delhi: The deaths of nine people from violence related directly to the general election-occurring in and around polling booths-are an early warning to the next government that it must start thinking about how to balance economic growth with social justice and equity, experts said.   These deaths-mostly in areas hit by Maoist violence-highlight the conflicts that...

-The Hindu   Farmers are again at the receiving end due to delay in procurement NALGONDA (Andhra Pradesh): The delight of getting a good paddy yield during the season was short-lived as the farmers had much difficulty in selling their produce and the unprepared and short-staffed district administration failed to stop millers from exploiting farmers in the district. Farmers cultivated paddy in more than 2 lakh hectares, highest in the recent past and second...