-Livemint.com Early adopters claim higher yields and low cultivation costs. But scientific validation is awaited Government can keep fertilizer subsidies in check. The fertilizer subsidy bill, driven by a spike in natural gas and other raw material prices, is set to touch a staggering ₹1.3 trillion in 2021-22 Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. Or so it happened to KV Homendra. At 23, he went for a degree in...
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Myth of coverage: How state delay, private sector disinterest caused PM-JAY to fail -Shagun
-Down to Earth Almost 90% of COVID-19 hospitalisations under the scheme took place in 4 states The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), India’s flagship health insurance scheme launched in 2018, provided cushion to only 14.25 per cent of people hospitalised for the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) between April 2020 and June 2021. The scheme’s failure during the pandemic was expected. Since health is a state subject and PM-JAY is implemented by the...
More »Kerala and Tamil Nadu bucked the trend of falling Total Fertility Rate, indicates the latest NFHS data
After the release of the second phase data of the National Family Health Survey Fifth Round (NFHS-5), media commentators and experts have written that the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) for India has gone down just below the replacement-level fertility. The TFR for the entire nation was 2.2 in 2015-16, which decreased to 2.0 in 2019-21. According to the United Nations, the replacement-level fertility is reached when the TFR of a...
More »Tomato price rise: Farmers in Andhra say that is only part of the whole story -G Ram Mohan
-Down to Earth All-year demand, the pressures of cultivating tomato off season and changing climate are making life difficult for Chittoor’s farmers Tomato prices across the country have shot through the roof recently. The government has intervened to lower the prices. But for farmers in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district, one of India’s major tomato-growing areas, the government’s action show its bias for urban consumers and its neglect for rural farmers who are...
More »The return of ‘naati’ ragi -G Krishna Prasad
-DeccanHerald.com Thanks to a farmers' initiative, Karnataka now has around 80 desi varieties of finger millet to choose from A group of farmers and members of women’s self-help groups have gathered at Eshwar Gouda Patil’s field to celebrate ‘Ragi Field Day’. This farm in Mattighatta village, in Dharwad’s Kundagol taluk, has as many as 72 varieties of ragi (finger millet), cultivated on half an acre of land, leaves visitors awestruck. Kumara Naidu, a farmer...
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