-The Times of India MADURAI: Rodentologists suggested farmers use eco-friendly methods to remove rats from the fields, instead of relying on harmful pesticides easily available in the market. Things like bow traps, snap traps, box and cage-type traps effectively entrap and kill rodents. Chemical rodenticides and other pesticides, on the other hand, cause harm to the plants and create nuisance for the farmers. Bow traps are usually placed in the field without any bait inside. Around...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government has granted the military permission to test missiles targeting four ecologically fragile islands in the Andaman and Nicobar group in the Bay of Bengal, junking a UPA policy derisively known as "birds-over-bombs". The islands are uninhabited or largely uninhabited for most of the year, a source in the defence ministry claimed. Environmental organisations such as the Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore, claim the islands are home...

-The Hindu Business Line Agriculture development and food security form the foundation of manufacturing growth. Modi must realise this Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s exhortation ‘Make in India’ would make perfect sense till we realise that by ‘making’ he means manufacturing. But could it be that his focus on manufacturing may come a cropper if we do not ensure that agriculture is placed permanently on a sound footing? The history of the great...

-The Financial Express Smart irrigation management steps, including harnessing social sector schemes for irrigation works, did the trick The spate of recent farmer suicides has once again drawn the country’s attention to the deepening agrarian crisis. Media is abuzz with opinions and expert advice on how to provide succour to the farming community. Oft-repeated among these is the demand to increase public investment in irrigation. However, we need to remember that, since 1990, public...

-Mid Day Mumbai: He has literally made waste fruitful. Kamlakar Sukhad Urhade, a tribal youth from Girgaon Bhujad Pada village in Talasari taluka has made a water pump out of discarded waste material. Urhade lost his father soon after he completed his education, and the responsibility of looking after his mother and two brothers fell on him. The family’s 5-6 acres of land yields rice, but only during the rainy season....