-The Indian Express This comes even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing the 14th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification on Monday, mentioned that “we are focusing on ZBNF”. India’s premier academic body of agricultural scientists has hit out at Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), terming it as an “unproven” technology bringing no incremental value gain to either farmers or consumers. “The government should not needlessly invest capital...

-News18.com Calling for reorganisation of the agriculture sector and crop diversification, Mihir Shah said that agriculture must be thought of as an enterprise. Delhi: Incentivising cultivation of water-efficient crops and not “maniacal” river-linking is the need of the hour as the crippling water crisis bears down on India’s agrarian economy, former Planning Commission member and water conservationist Dr Mihir Shah has said. Calling for a reorganisation of the agriculture sector and crop...

-The Telegraph "The government has miserably failed to stimulate the domestic economy. It has spent less and less on public education, healthcare and infrastructure because of its erroneous policy" The Modi government has an ambitious plan to create a $5-trillion economy in the next five years — but all data points are heavily stacked against it. The economy is floundering and the Reserve Bank of India has already trimmed its growth forecast...

-The Hindu Reviving the consumption demand and private investment has assumed the highest priority in 2019-20, notes central bank report. Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in its annual report for 2018-19, has said the lack of domestic demand is holding back the animal spirits in the economy and emphasised the need to revive consumption demand and private investment during 2019-20. “What ails the animal spirits? At the core is the...

-The Hindu Gujarat tops rankings for second time New Delhi: Thirteen of the 27 States and Union Territories have improved their water management practices from last year, an analysis by the NITI Aayog has revealed. Gujarat, though it dropped a point, topped the rankings for the second year in a row with a score of 75 out of a maximum possible 100. Six States did worse than last year — with Delhi, which was...