-TheWire.in The cashless future that demonetisation promised never came, and many in rural Marathwada scoff at the idea. Aurangabad: Ten months after currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 were scrapped on November 8 last year, the ghost of demonetisation continues to haunt Deepak Badavne. In early November, Badavne had harvested 31 quintals of cotton from his 2.5 acre farm. He expected good returns on it. “The trader arranged for the truck...

-The Hindu Business Line At an organic market in Odisha, middle-class consumers get to interact with the producers of their food and appreciate traditional knowledge systems One Sunday morning in January, I visited an organic produce market located amidst dense bougainvillea creepers and rows of trees, on the grounds of the six-decade-old Christian Hospital in Bissamcuttack, a town in western Odisha’s Rayagada district. In policy and public imagination, Odisha, particularly its western districts...

-The Times of India BENGALURU: Successive droughts and depletion of groundwater table in Karnataka has destroyed a whopping 2.28 crore arecanut and coconut trees. "The state has witnessed low rainfall this year too and farmers are finding it difficult to source water even after drilling borewells up to 1,200 feet, the situation is getting worse," law minister T B Jayachandra told reporters here on Monday while pointing to an imminent horticultural crisis....

-The Hindu The headline in a recent PTI report “Saving 2 tigers gives more value than Mangalyaan”’ was intriguing, since it said that saving two tigers yields a capital benefit of Rs. 520 crores, while Mangalyaan cost us Rs. 450 crores. The headline was both exciting and hurtful. Excited by it, I contacted Professor Madhu Verma of the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), Bhopal, and she shared with me both...

-Hindustan Times Ever since the goods and services tax (GST) was brought to force, there has been a 60% fall in the demand for plywood, owing to the tax rate of 28% on furniture goods. Situated on the outskirts of Ludhiana city in Hambran, is a small plywood manufacturing unit. Until last month, the manufacturing unit had a 110-strong workforce. But now the owner, Wazir Sood, has temporarily laid off 70 workers....