-The Hindu Chennai: Even as various agencies push farmers to take up cultivation of pulses, questions about seed availability and procurement are making agriculturists think twice about taking it up. Pulses bring in more profits, take lesser time to grow, require lesser water than paddy and fix nitrogen in the soil, thus reducing the use of fertilizers for the next crop. “Though the price of pulses in the retail market is quite...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: India’s forests are worth as much as the combined market value of BSE-listed companies with a notional value of Rs 115 trillion but the money collected from diverting parts of this land for industries won’t go to communities that live in and are dependent on the jungles. The Union environment ministry accepted most recommendations of a 2013 expert panel that hiked the rates at which industrialists pay for...

-The Hindu Democracies are not sustained by obedient productive units in so-called knowledge-based economies. But that is precisely what the new National Education Policy envisages “Public policy,” according to Douglas Gomery, “is the making of governmental rules and regulations to benefit not one individual but society as a whole. It asks, what is the best way to conceive and evaluate policies aimed at the public as a whole and its various subgroups?”...

-Bloomberg When farmers in the scorched village of Horti in Western India were struggling to raise money for a canal, they turned to an unlikely source: a crowdfunding website called FuelADream. The farmers had never heard of crowdfunding before, but a local non-profit group suggested the site and helped them write a proposal that explained how a canal would help feed local families. Within weeks, they had raised Rs 300,000 ($4,490) from...

-The Hindu Business Line Govt’s production and distribution processes are out of sync with consumption patterns Of late, with growing income and awareness about nutritious food, there has been a noticeable decrease in the consumption of rice (a high-carb food) in Indian households. This change in consumption pattern, however, is not reflected in India’s agriculture policy which continues to revolve around rice and wheat. Moreover, current policies related to production, procurement, storage...