-NDTV New Delhi: Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) on Friday said that three states had become Open Defecation Free (ODF) while four more state were expected to achieve the status by March next year. Parameswaran Iyer, Secretary for MDWS, said: “After Sikkim became the first state, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala were declared ODF states recently. We are anticipating four more states — Haryana, Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Punjab to achieve the...
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Farm distress: Gujarat's groundnut growers take a hit as prices plunge below MSP -Gopal Kateshiya
-The Indian Express After cotton last year, the BJP state government faces a fresh challenge ahead of late-2017 elections. Rajkot: GROUNDNUT FARMERS last week forced a suspension of auctions at the agriculture produce market committee (APMC) mandi in Amreli to protest against tumbling prices of Gujarat’s second biggest cash crop after cotton. The new groundnut-in-shell crop is fetching around Rs 3,500 per quintal, well below the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs...
More »Govts should not blindly promote micro-irrigation schemes -J Harsha
-Deccan Herald Water in India has now become a contentious issue due to rise in demand, climate change and growing mismanagement. With erratic rainfall and recurring droughts in 2012, 2015 and 2016, “water saving” has become a high priority for the governments. As the agriculture sector consumes 80% of freshwater in the country, micro-irrigation – drip and sprinkler irrigation – has been catapulted as a policy priority because drip and sprinkler irrigation...
More »Share of Muslims in jail bigger than in the population, show NCRB data -Deeptiman Tiwary
-The Indian Express In Maharashtra, roughly every tenth person is Muslim, as opposed to almost every third inmate in its prisons. Muslims make up 15.8% of all convicts and 20.9% of all undertrials in jails across the country. This is higher than their share in the country’s population, which is 14.2%. But in some states, this gap is far wider. According to latest data on prisons by the National Crime Records Bureau...
More »PMO props up states on GM crops -Richa Sharma
-The New Indian Express NEW DELHI: Faced with stiff opposition from the states, civil society groups and even the RSS on GM food crops, the Central government is reaching out to the state governments to bring them on board for field trials. Acting on the directives of the PMO, the environment ministry on October 21 organised a meeting which was attended by representatives from different states. More such meetings are expected to...
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