-Deccan Chronicle Nizamabad: To prevent high-level irregularities in the Public Distribution System (PDS), the Nizamabad district administration has decided to introduce bio-metric system for supplying essentials to ration card holders. On a pilot basis, around 100 fair price (FP) shops will be adopted and the bio-metric system will be introduced to distribute essentials to the beneficiaries. As per the new system, any one of the family member of ration cardholder...

-The Economic Times Dinkar Patil, a farmer from Buldhana district in Vidarbha, Maharashtra, normally cultivates cotton on his 13-acre farm land. This year, however, he has skipped the cotton crop and opted for soyabean and tur dal. "The rainfall started late. I did not cultivate cotton because of the delayed rains and the huge increase in cost of cultivation of the crop," said Patil. He is expecting a fall of about...

-The Hindustan Times Kapurthala (Punjab): Direct seeding of rice (DSR) and paddy straw management were the major issues at the Kisan Mela held in the city on Thursday. The mela, organised by the agriculture department in association with the Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA), began with a message of 'save environment, say no to burn paddy straw'. Four farmers, including a woman, were honoured for using DSR technology in paddy farming. The technology...

-The Financial Express A mechanism is needed to compensate farmers for not exercising their right to sell productive land but continue to grow foodgrains. India finds itself in a piquant situation. While its population, and with it the number of poor, is growing, its cultivable land is not only shrinking, more worryingly, the economic returns of the agricultural use are diminishing vis-a-vis non-agricultural use. The situation may not be alarming right now,...

-The Business Standard WTO reconvenes to re-examine issue of agriculture subsidies, numbers alone suggest that India has a strong case for declining to sign WTO's TFA The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is reconvening in the last week of September to examine the issue of agricultural subsidies against the backdrop of India's refusal to become a signatory to the trade facilitation agreement (TFA) at Bali. Since then, a lot of water has flowed...