-The Times of India CHENNAI: Poultry farmers can now afford to count their profits before their chickens hatch - and they are big, with chickens weighing on average twice as much as they did 50 years ago. The broiler chicken of today, a product of controlled breeding, weighs around 2.2kg as compared to 1.2kg before 1960, say veterinarians and chicken farm owners. Contract farming started in India in the early 1960s, taking...

-The Telegraph In her recent book, Green Wars, the environmental journalist Bahar Dutt, writes: "The editor of a leading media house, everytime I pitched a green story, would invariably complain: ‘Environmentalism is stalling growth; all I am interested in is double-digit growth for this country.'" The idea that environmental protection and economic progress are at odds is widely held among India's elite. It is shared by newspaper editors, economists, businessmen, and, not...

-The Financial Express Thiruvananthapuram: Following the Geographical Indication (GI) tag, Palakkadan Matta rice from North Kerala has started going the mobile app-based retailing way. Following the Geographical Indication (GI) tag, Palakkadan Matta rice from North Kerala has started going the mobile app-based retailing way. A farm specialising in Palakkadan Matta has launched a mobile application that facilitates retailing of the rice and rice products to supply anywhere in India....

-Down to Earth Civil society calls for pesticide-free, organic food under government programmes for children while Bihar focuses on building new kitchens in government schools A year after 23 school children in Bihar's Saran district died of insecticide poisoning after consuming food served under Mid Day Meal (MDM) Scheme, government agencies seem to have forgotten the serious concern over handling and banning of hazardous chemicals that the tragedy raised. The children of Dharmasati-Gandaman...

-Economic and Political Weekly     Sustained and focused efforts have to be made by the Tamil Nadu state government to provide relief and rehabilitation to the drought affected people of the state. S Rajendran (myrajendran@gmail.com) is with the Department of Economics, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu. Due to the failure of the north-east monsoon in December 2013, Tamil Nadu is witnessing drought like conditions this year, leading to poor agricultural productivity, rural distress,...