-The Hindu Business Line Calls for restructuring Nafed for effective procurement of pulses, oilseeds   Bengaluru: The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) has made a pitch for encouraging water use efficiency in agriculture. As part of its non-price policy recommendations for kharif 2015-16, the crop advisory body has suggested that States fix quantitative ceilings on per hectare use of both water and electricity. The farm sector accounts for about 83 per cent...

-The Hindu Business Line New variant to generate electricity from cooking Greenway, a Mumbai-based start-up which produces eco-friendly and fuel-efficient biomass stoves, will build prototype units by July that can also generate 10 watt electricity from the cooking heat. Intended to be an alternative to harmful and inefficient traditional mud stoves, Greenway’s ‘smart stove’ claims 50 per cent fuel savings and 70 per cent reduction in smoke emission. It has been tested and...

  If environmental degradation disturbs you and you are averse to reading technical manuals and copious volumes on the subject, there is some good news for you.    A recently published book from Gene Campaign entitled Coping with Climate Change is doing the rounds among environmentalists, civil society activists, public servants and researchers. Edited by Dr. Suman Sahai, the book has been written in a coffee book style to make easy serious...

-Hindustan Times In all the heat being generated by the government’s amendments to the land acquisition law, the tribals are being left out in the cold. In his Mann Ki Baat broadcast Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed himself to “My dear farmer brothers and sisters”. He did not include the tribals. Perhaps farmers are in the spotlight because the tragedy of farmers’ suicides gives the opposition an emotive issue to raise in...

-Hindustan Times Rohtak: The meteorological (Met) department's prediction of below-average rainfall this year between June and September has raised the concern among paddy growers in the state, who are already reeling under crop losses due to the unseasonal rainfall, which has damaged the rabi crops. The prediction of poor rainfall will not only affect the farmers, but also rice production in the state, as according to the figures given by the state...