Plan to conduct an array of sensitisation programme  Farmers will be taught the raising and technical aspects of jatropha farming They will be educated on aspects like digging bore well and disc ploughing Tirupur: Promotion of methods to develop wasteland and subsequently take up large scale cultivation of jatropha on it will be on the top of the priority list for the Department of Agriculture in Tirupur district during the current financial...

In the cotton fields of Vidarbha in central India, grief is a constant companion. Wherever you turn, there are heart-breaking stories of suicide. In the village of Mangi, friends and family are preparing the body of Laxman Tekam for burial. Women are wailing and men have tears streaming down their cheeks. Laxman was a cotton farmer who hanged himself from the roof beam of his small house after his debts...

Biodiversity drives sustainable and climate-resilient farming and the biotechnology industry. Everything should be done to spread bio-literacy for an era of bio-happiness in rural and urban India through the conversion of bio-resources into jobs and income.  Biodiversity provides building blocks for sustainable food, health and livelihood security systems. It is the feedstock for the biotechnology industry and a climate-resilient farming system. Given its importance, a Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)...

Says India is obliged under international law to protect right to life  Wants impartial inquiry into reports of excessive use of force by police ‘Force must be used in accordance with international standards' Amnesty International (AI) has urged the authorities in Orissa to halt immediately unnecessary and excessive use of force by police and private civil militias on Adivasi (indigenous communities) and peasants protesting against the acquisition of their lands and habitats...

“If one goes through the agricultural production history in the last six decades, the number of farmers opting out of agriculture, suicides of hundreds of farmers in the past 10 years, and shrinking cultivation lands are ample proof that our agriculture policy is totally wrong,” says Mr. R. Kulandaisamy a progressive farmer and liquid bio-fertilizer producer called Tari Biotech in Thanjavur. “Though policy makers and certain sections of the scientific fraternity...