-The Hindu Tirupur (Tamil Nadu): A group of self-help group women from Kerala is showing the way in mechanised paddy transplantation which was now initiated for the first time in a commercial way in Tirupur district this season. Expertise of members of Haritha Vanitha Labour Bank, a women self-help group at Kollangode in Palakkad district, who were trained in mechanised paddy transplantation and harvest techniques by the Kerala Government, are called...

-India Today Taking a leap of unconventionality, a non-profit trust in collaboration with a local puja club based in north Kolkata will worship the very first transgender Durga idol on Panchami. In the 300-year-old history of Durga Puja in Bengal, this will the first time where devotees will worship a transgender Durga idol that has been fashioned after the androgynous form of Shiva and Parvati, Ardhanarishvara. Organised by the non-profit trust, Pratyay Gender...

-The Hindu PAU is now recommending farmers to sow Traditional non-Bt varieties of American and indigenous cotton The ineffectiveness of genetically modified (GM) cotton against the recent whitefly attack in Punjab and Haryana, which witnessed widespread protests by farmers, has raised concern among agricultural experts and farmers over the growing dependency on Bt cotton. They believe it is time for India to actively promote and involve public-private partnership (PPP) model in GM crop...

-Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Programmes proliferate but vast majority of rural poor remain uncovered by social protection Rome: Social protection is emerging as a critical tool in the drive to eradicate hunger, yet the vast majority of the world's rural poor are yet to be covered. The State of Food and Agriculture 2015 published by FAO today finds that in poor countries, social protection schemes - such as cash transfers, school feeding...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: RTI activists led by Aruna Roy will boycott PM Narendra Modi's inaugural speech at the Central Information Commission's annual convention on Friday to protest against the exclusion of several RTI users and activists from the event citing security concerns. Only a handful of activists including Nikhil Dey, Lokesh Batra, Venkatesh Nayak, Anjali Bhardwaj and Shekhar Singh have been invited for the convention. Traditionally, civil society representatives...