-The Hindu State Agriculture Department asks farmers to keep a vigil on the crop and not panic; runs awareness and training campaigns to combat the threat Chandigarh: With whitefly sighted in the cotton belt districts of Punjab due to the prevailing hot and humid weather conditions, the Agriculture Department has asked farmers to keep a vigil, besides running awareness and training campaigns to combat the threat. “The next 15-20 days are critical. We...

-Mumbai Mirror A behind the scenes look at what’s driving the region’s return to traditional paddy techniques. It’s certainly not the global shift towards organic cultivation. A recent study conducted by Harvard University has established that consuming just one cup of white rice (polished rice) a day can put you at risk of diabetes, regardless of your nationality or whether you have a family history of the disease. Bhairav Saini lives in...

-PTI New Delhi: Tomato prices, which have skyrocketed up to Rs. 100/kg, are more likely to decline over the next fortnight as supplies from southern and other growing states are expected to improve, said a senior ICAR official. Retail tomato prices have gone through the roof for more than a month now in most parts of the country and are still ruling high up to 100 per kg, as per the Consumer...

-PTI ‘North central region seeing much wetter pattern, with stronger monsoons over the last 15 years’ Washington: Monsoon has strengthened over north central India in the last 15 years, researchers from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have said, indicating a reversal in the general perception that the region has dried up in over a decade. Chien Wang, a senior research scientist in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, the...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: An environmental court in Calcutta today directed the Chhattisgarh government to halt work on 31 projects along the Mahanadi river that environmental groups fear will reduce the downstream water flow in Odisha. The Calcutta bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) issued a stay order on the projects, a mix of Dams, barrages, irrigation channels among them, at various locations along the Mahanadi before the river enters Odisha's...