-The Hindu Malnutrition deaths were reported from Bandapani in July West Bengal: Intervening in sick tea gardens of the State for the first time, the Government of West Bengal has taken over the Bandapani Tea garden located in the Madarihaat block of Alipurduar district in West Bengal, and put up a notice on the gate that the land belongs to the State government. The tea garden has been closed since July 2013. When...

-The Times of India A Reserve Bank of India paper says that the UPA flagship MGNREGA or the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, under which a household is assured of 100 days of wages per year in return for working on various rural development, has not actually contributed to the rise in food inflation as generally perceived. Incidently, the Reserve Bank was among the first to point that the...

-The Times of India VISAKHAPATNAM: Researchers of Gitam University's food science and technology department have successfully registered a patent for millet rich biscuits. The researchers -- Layam Anitha, M M Krishna and Pooja Mandlik -- worked on developing the millet rich biscuits under the project named 'Millet Delight'. The trio also named their patented biscuits the same. The research team said that at the present most of the products available in the...

-The Hindu Agroforestry promotes productive cropping environments, prevents deforestation, protects watersheds and enables agricultural land to withstand extreme weather events Growing trees on farms is a triple-win strategy for combating simultaneously the challenges of increasing food production, mitigating greenhouse gases and adapting to climate change. It is an instrument of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), catapulted to centre-stage by President Obama's launch of the Global Alliance for CSA at the World Climate Summit on...

-The Third Pole Cities and villages in India will soon run out of potable water if current trends continue, warns senior water official India's groundwater tables are plunging at an alarming rate with reserves in some states dwindling to critical levels, according to the latest report from the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) - the apex body under the Ministry of Water Resources. Over 16% of the country's groundwater resources are ‘over-exploited' -...