-The Hindu Kuruvai village in Palakkad credited with replacing pesticides with agroecology Kochi (Kerala): The success of a group of farmers in Kuruvai village in Palakkad district’s Vadakkencherry panchayat in cultivating paddy without chemical pesticides has come in for praise from United Nations Environment Programme. It finds a prominent place in a book on replacing highly hazardous pesticides with agroecology brought out by Pesticide Action Network International. The book was released at the...

-The Hindu SJM leader says the nation is capable of growing on its own strength and capital With the Swadesh Jagran Manch, an RSS-front to espouse the cause of Swadeshi, questioning the NDA government’s relaxing of FDI norms in 15 sectors, the government is witnessing opposition from within Sangh Parivar circles to its bid to attract investment. Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) — the Sangh’s arm active among workers — has written...

-The Financial Express Come January, Food Corporation of India (FCI), under a severe financial crunch, may be forced to trim its procurement operations. Come January, Food Corporation of India (FCI), under a severe financial crunch, may be forced to trim its procurement operations. Unless the finance ministry releases a good part of the unpaid subsidy of Rs 58,000 crore or let Life Insurance Corporation raise Rs 40,000 crore to support FCI soon,...

-Financial Express The country must double its support to farmers, from the current levels of about 6-8% of the value of agri-output It was in the mid-1980s that the ‘India-Bharat’ phraseology was fist pushed into political jargon, by farmers’ leader Sharad Joshi, with ‘India’ representing the urban elite of the country and ‘Bharat’ synonymous with its neglected rural folk. Joshi, at the time, was leading lakhs of farmers protesting against anti-farmer policies,...

-Hindustan Times Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh government will prepare a legal framework for leasing land for agriculture that would not put the land owner at a disadvantage but will provide rights to the lease holder, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Tuesday. Chouhan was addressing the media at the conclusion of an exercise launched by the state government to assess the ground situation against the backdrop of the farming crisis. He said that...