-The Hindu Chintala Venkat Reddy, who won a Padma Shri in 2020, applies natural processes and minerals to enrich rice and wheat with Vitamin D Hyderabad: Farmer Chintala Venkat Reddy from Hyderabad, Telangana was no silent observer when his doctor friends discussed Vitamin D deficiency and how it can affect the human body. As a farmer however, he wasn’t too excited by the idea of loading the body for the required Vit...

-Livemint.com Three-fourths of India’s population depend on cereals from states that over-exploit groundwater, finds a study. This raises concerns about the country’s food security The farmer protests near Delhi have brought renewed attention to the agricultural practices of northern India, groundwater use in particular. A new study finds that states where groundwater reserves are at critical levels, such as Punjab, form the major source of cereals for around 76% of India’s population....

-Newsclick.in Health care profiteering in COVID times. Spiraling health care expenses in India have been pushing more than 55 million Indians into a state of abject poverty every year. COVID-19 has only worsened the trend for even more families—like Aghan Singh’s. To ensure that his sick mother received the best treatment, Singh, a self-employed motor mechanic in the small town of Bilaspur, in Chhattisgarh, India, decided to take her to a popular private...

-Down to Earth The use of synthetic chemicals for agriculture was halted completely in 2005 by the Union territory Lakshadweep, after Sikkim, is on its way to become 100 per cent organic. The Union territory’s agriculture department had submitted a proposal to the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, seeking to declare its entire 32 square kilometre geographical land area as organic. The proposal was approved October 26, 2020 after receiving required certifications...

-The Indian Express Countries more successful in curbing COVID-19 are welfare states, ruled by left-of-centre parties. There is a lesson here. A plea has been filed before the Supreme Court, seeking to remove the words “socialist” and “secular” from the Preamble of the Constitution. But despite a persistent erosion over the last couple of decades, both principles were central to the type of republic our political forefathers had imagined. With the embrace...