-The Hindu Grains and vegetables are being grown with the technique used for paddy farming BERHAMPUR: System for Rice Intensification (SRI), a technique of paddy cultivation, is being successfully used for cultivation of other crops including vegetables by small farmers in Ganjam district of Odisha. Typically, the SRI is used for paddy cultivation to increase yield. But for the past few years the same technique is being used to increase the harvest of...

-Deccan Herald Poor monsoon forcing govt to intensify implementation Notwithstanding the scathing attack on UPA’s schemes, the Modi government would fall back on the previous regime’s flagship programme to rescue the rural economy from second consecutive deficient monsoon. The government would intensify implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in drought hit areas to stop the slide in rural incomes. Officials revealed that the main thrust in MGNREGA implementation in drought affected...

-Reuters Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to provide millions of farmers with income insurance linked to crop prices, officials say, but it may not do much to ease rural distress, with small farmers standing to benefit little and likely to be put off by bureaucracy. Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which swept to office a year ago, hopes to consolidate its power in local elections over the next two years, but anger...

-Hindustan Times Policy makers have no control over fickle weather whims and complex forecasts. Regardless of the eventual course and quality of summer rains brought on by drafts of breeze that stream 8,000 km from the southern Pacific, the early predictions did give an early heads up of what was likely in the next few months. Yet, every drought year, India’s response to deal with scanty summer rains has been knee-jerk, marked...

-The Hindu The Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of chronically undernourished people in developing countries by 2015 is within reach. But progress must accelerate by the end of this year Almost 800 million people, or one in nine in the world, continue to suffer from hunger. The number of hungry people has declined globally by more than 167 million over the last decade, and by more than 200 million since...