-NDTV Hyderabad: The rains triggered by Cyclone Nilam which crossed the Andhra Pradesh coast near Chennai on October 31 have battered the state, claiming 29 lives. Normal life has been thrown out of gear in the region and hundreds of villages remained inundated. In East and West Godavari districts, famous as the rice bowl of the state, standing Paddy and cotton crops over lakhs of acres were damaged. Officials said they were making...

-IANS Bhubaneswar: Flash floods triggered by incessant rains have killed one person, displaced hundreds of people and damaged Paddy crops in Odisha, an official said on Tuesday. Although Cyclone Nilam in the Bay of Bengal weakened into a depression, it triggered heavy rains across the state during last five days, Revenue and Disaster Management Department Minister Surya Narayan Patro, told IANS. The five districts affected by the flash floods are Ganjam, Khordha, Cuttack,...

-Down to Earth Rice cultivation has led to waterlogging and soil salinity in Haryana’s Jhajjar district CASTE-BASED khap panchayats of Haryana are usually in the news for passing regressive and, often, controversial orders in the name of honouring social customs. But this year in January, the Jhakkar khap panchayat of Jhajjar district gave a rather unusual order in the larger interest of the farming community. It ordered that all the 36...

-PTI Pitching for direct cash transfer of food subsidy, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Tuesday assured this would not result in dismantling of current system of procuring grains at minimum support price (MSP) and distribution through PDS. "...about the cash transfer (of subsidy), the accusation is that you want to dismantle the PDS. This is completely wrong because there is no question of dismantling the minimum support prices," Ahluwalia...

-The Economic Times The fear of drought in India has abated with late precipitation of the monsoon in September this year. However, the country continues to suffer from a drought of formalised tabulated data of agro items on a real-time or monthly basis, though many estimates continue to fatigue the print and electronic media.  Red or green prices flashing on computer screens are taken for 'granted', but the discovery of future or...