The Centre has asked Food Corporation of India (FCI) to procure PAU-201 paddy that conforms with its specifications and dispose of the rest in the open market through tenders. A decision on whether the PAU-201 paddy variety is fit for human consumption was raised at a high-level meeting between Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, recently. FCI officials in Punjab are giving final touches to the modalities to...

The proposal of the Orissa government to supply surplus water from Hansua River to Posco India's proposed mega steel plant at Paradip has drawn flak from the farmers who have decided to protest this move of the government. The activists of Nab Nirman Krushak Sangthan conducted a meeting at Redhua near Paradip while hundreds of farmers joined rallies to protest the move of the state government to supply water for the...

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today pledged Rs 300 crore to farmers to make Bharatiya Kisan Union (Rajewal) President Balbir Singh Rajewal accept a glass of juice to end his five-day hunger strike in Mohali. Addressing a joint press conference along with Rajewal, the Chief Minister said the Rs 300 crore would compensate farmers for the diesel used by them to grow paddy last year in near-drought conditions. The Rs...

Apni kheti, apna khaad / Apna beej, apna swaad (Our own farm, our own fertiliser / Our own seeds, our own taste) -- Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi. A farmer from Tandia village in Varanasi has a solution to India's burgeoning food crisis. In a land where poverty, hunger, malnutrition and farmer suicides are rampant, Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi's innovation could work wonders. He has single-handedly developed a number of high yielding, nutritious...

40 farmers of Simaldih village, located around three kilometres from Dhanbad railway station are facing drought for 10 years as 25 acres of their fertile land has turned barren. The villagers alleged that a large drain connected to the Central Hospital of Bharat coking coal Limited (BCCL) has turned their land infertile. The villagers said that the chemical waste from the drain directly fall on their land. A few years ago...