-The New Indian Express IDUKKI: Contamination of water bodies due to excessive use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers in the High Range areas has been constantly causing stress for cardamom farmer and farmer scientist Reji Njallani. This made him develop a method which would prevent the flow of hazardous chemicals into rivers and other water bodies. After years of research, he has found a solution to the problem by developing what...

-Women's Feature Service Tribal families in Bankura, West Bengal, living on a stable diet of potato and rice and occasionally some 'daal' (lentils), are now consuming a variety of vegetables, cereals, fruits and animal protein with relish on a daily basis, marking a sea change in the nutrition parametres in one of the most backward districts of India. The credit for this dramatic transformation goes to the dry land sustainable integrated farming...

-The Indian Express A government shorn of Western educated ministers could change the status quo. Since 1947, Indians have not spoken out so strongly and clearly for a completely new brand of people running government. Mercifully, there are no ministers educated abroad. Thankfully, none of them has been brainwashed at Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, the World Bank or the IMF, subtly forcing expensive Western solutions on typically Indian problems at the cost of...

-The Hindu Chennai: The Tamil Nadu model of providing primacy to the views of farmers in the management of irrigation tanks has been lauded by an official of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), who is heading a team to review tank projects in India. Conventionally, the Tank Management has been governed by the water engineering-centric approach. But, in Tamil Nadu, "the focus is on farmers, their needs. And, that's the way...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to dismantle the Planning Commission has led to revelations from some of the body's former stalwarts about past attempts to reform the Soviet-era institution that were repeatedly thwarted, culminating in a tense farewell for Manmohan Singh last May. The panel that has steered India's economic management and vision for 64 years without any constitutional mandate has needed radical surgeries for years but was...