-DNA   In the midst of the euphoria in the capital markets, after a strong mandate for Narendra Modi, the loud cries of wailing farm widows have been lost in the noise and cacophony that followed. To my mind, this is the biggest policy paralysis that afflicts the country. So when I heard Modi speak at the Central Hall of Parliament the other day: "Ours will be a government that thinks, works and...

Watershed Support Services and Activities Network (WASSAN) started in 1995 as an informal network of NGOs to influence the Watershed Development Program of Government being implemented in the drought prone areas for economic improvement of the poor, women and marginalized sections of the rural India. Carving out a creative space for NGOs within the government program, capacity building of various stakeholders, influencing policy and capacitating and empowering the rural community...

-ANI New Delhi/ Cuttack: Farmers in India's eastern region, prone for flash floods, are now shifting to flood-tolerant variety of rice, developed by Manila-based International Rice Research Institute, IRRI. The variety - Swarna-SUB1, is bread from a popular Indian variety of rice Swarna by upgrading it with SUB1, the gene for flood tolerance. Swarna was developed by Andhra Pradesh Agriculture University. The new variety, according to a report in the Indian Science Journal...

-The Hindu   The project has been started in Edaiyapatti panchayat in Pudukottai Pudukottai district is one of the driest regions in Tamil Nadu. The major crops under tank fed and open well irrigation system in this region in Tamil Nadu are paddy, millets, black gram and groundnut. Pulses like green, black and red gram are generally grown as a rainfed crops especially during summer. But the harvested pulses do not fetch a good...

-IPS News   ATTAPPADI, India, May 4 2014 (IPS) - The death of a 10-day-old girl last November in the Attappadi tribal belt of Kerala, one of India's best performing states in terms of human development indices, shows how the country's battle against child mortality is far from won. The infant's mother, Saraswathy, a 20-year-old from the Kurumba tribe, was admitted to a government hospital, and delivered the next day. At 1.8 kg,...