An outbreak of papaya mealy bug has affected hundreds of acres of papaya grown in and around Kannivadi and Reddiyarchatram regions in Dindigul district. Since the bug has caused severe damage to the crops, farmers have incurred huge losses. The mealy bug is a polyphagous sucking pest that infests crops such as cotton, papaya, tapioca, mulberry, jatropha and other cultivable crops. The pest sucks the sap of the plant and weakens...

How fresh and healthy are the vegetables that you consume daily? Not much, according to the Union health ministry. In a bid to make them look garden fresh and ensure that they grow faster to reach markets, farmers are using chemicals at random that threaten to cause serious health hazards to consumers. Expressing concern, minister of state for health Dinesh Trivedi has said, "Eating vegetables -- a must for good...

It isn't too much of a stretch to say that India is made up of many nations. A comparison of state-level and country-level data from the newly released multi-dimensional poverty index shows that while Kerala and Goa are at a similar level of development as 'middle-income countries' like Indonesia, Jharkhand and Bihar are similar to 'least-developed countries' like the Democratic Republic of Congo. Earlier this month, the new MPI measure...

Politicians, from the ruling party and opposition alike, are grappling with the problem of how to effectively communicate with their constituencies on the issue of high food inflation. One had thought it would be easy for the opposition to mount a campaign on rising prices against the ruling coalition, but it appears that inflation and its impact on the political economy is far more complex today than it was 10...

In the summer of 2006, I travelled with a group of scholars and writers through the district of Dantewada, then (as now) the epicentre of the conflict between the Indian State and Maoist rebels. Writing about my experiences in a four-part series published in The Telegraph, I predicted that the conflict would intensify, because the Maoists would not give up their commitment to armed struggle, while the government would not...