-Hindustan Times Kolkata/ Darjeeling/ Guwahati: More than five lakh workers in West Bengal’s biggest labour-intensive industries of tea and jute have not got wages since Wednesday when the union government withdrew two high-denomination currency notes. A similar predicament exists in neighbouring Assam and the rest of the Northeast, which has tea estates in remote areas where currency notes will take days to arrive. In Bengal, owners of several tea gardens and jute mills...

-The Times of India Shahjahanpur: As smog engulfed northern parts of India causing respiratory diseases and burning of eyes, experts from the sugarcane research centre in Shahjahanpur has appealed to farmers to use fungus cultured Organo decomposer (OD) instead of burning crop residue. Burning of crop residue is one of the many reasons that have contributed to the recent blanket of smog in large parts of north India, including western UP....

-The Indian Express After cotton last year, the BJP state government faces a fresh challenge ahead of late-2017 elections. Rajkot: GROUNDNUT FARMERS last week forced a suspension of auctions at the agriculture produce market committee (APMC) mandi in Amreli to protest against tumbling prices of Gujarat’s second biggest cash crop after cotton. The new groundnut-in-shell crop is fetching around Rs 3,500 per quintal, well below the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs...

-Deccan Herald Water in India has now become a contentious issue due to rise in demand, climate change and growing mismanagement. With erratic rainfall and recurring droughts in 2012, 2015 and 2016, “water saving” has become a high priority for the governments. As the agriculture sector consumes 80% of freshwater in the country, micro-irrigation –  drip and sprinkler irrigation – has been catapulted as a policy priority because drip and sprinkler irrigation...

-The Hindu Business Line An Odisha organisation is working hard to preserve traditional foods and prevent the mainstream from swallowing up local knowledge systems Inside a candy pink-and-yellow shamiana, a group of children in blue uniforms line up in front of stalls heaving with different kinds of foods. Tubers in shades of brown, beige and cream; pink and red berries; tiny yellow, orange and red tomatoes; leaves of many sizes and shapes;...