-The Indian Express But it may give a boost for S-SMS/Happy Seeder technology adoption to prevent paddy straw burning JaLandhar: Thakur Dyal Singh has never in the past raised the rates for operation of his combine harvester in farmers’ fields by more than Rs 100 per acre. Till around 2012-13, he was charging Rs 800-1,000 for harvesting, threshing and cleaning their paddy or wheat crop from one acre using his machine. In...

-The Hindu Business Line Plan to convert more rice fallow Land to pulses, oilseeds during rabi season New Delhi: The government has set a foodgrain target of 285.2 million tonnes (mt) for 2018-19, which is marginally higher than the expected production in 2017-18, the agriculture ministry said here on Tuesday. As per the fourth advance estimates released by the Government last month, the foodgrain harvest in 2017-18 would be around 284.83 mt, aided...

-The Hindu The Green Agriculture project synergises biodiversity conservation, agriculture production, and development India is signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity. As four of the 35 biodiversity hotspots are located in India, it is biodiversity-rich. However, climate change and development without consideration for biodiversity are leading to loss of biodiversity. India’s National Biodiversity Action Plan (NBAP) recognises the importance of biodiversity for inclusive development. The Green Agriculture project implemented by the Indian...

-The Hindu The Kerala model can be implemented across India with the same secular and gender-sensitive spirit Kumari died on September 1. She had contracted leptospirosis while doing relief work in Kerala after the floods, away from her own home which had not been affected. She was a health volunteer and prominent member of the Kudumbashree Mission in her panchayat in Ernakulum district. Kumari’s work and life symbolises the spirit of Kerala...

-The Hindu Dissenters of the past in India were great moral agitators, introducing social, intellectual and spiritual turbulence in public life. Would they have survived today? Dissent is not only the “safety valve of democracy”, as Justice D.Y. Chandrachud reminded us, but vital for meaningful social life. Societies stultify when everyone converges on a single opinion or when official stories go unchallenged. Flaws congeal and social rot sets in. Right or wrong,...