-The Times of India CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government has launched a major initiative to promote dry land farming in cluster mode, focusing on improving production and productivity of millets, pulses and oilseeds in rain-fed agricultural fields, which remain by and large unused. The scheme, rolled out through a government order on January 27 is worth Rs 803 crore and aims at water conservation, promoting mixed farming, mini-dairy and poultry units to...

-Scroll.in A farmer describes her efforts to preserve 12 breeds of draught as well milch indigenous cattle. On Monday, the so-far peaceful protests against jallikattu on Chennai’s Marina Beach turned violent as the police sought to clear agitators from what had become ground zero of the movement against the Supreme Court ban on the bull-taming sport. Though an ordinance cleared on Saturday allowed the sport to take place this Pongal, the controversy...

-The Financial Express New Delhi: Despite India being the world’s largest milk producer for the past many years, a majority of small Dairy farmers in the country continue to remain outside the formal credit system of commercial banks and financial institutions, a joint study the National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (NIAP) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has stated. The study ‘Formal versus Informal: Efficiency, inclusiveness, and...

-The Hindu Anger and frustration dominate discussions on demonetisation at a jan sunwai in Beawar, Rajasthan About five-six hundred people are crowded in and around a small shamiana-covered triangle, like the apex of the letter A. The two arms of the A are busy streets typical of small-town India, a press of pedestrians and two-wheelers punctuated with foraging cows, goats and impatient cars and tempos. Including the shopkeepers and hangers-on across the...

-Frontline.in To rural India, which is already reeling under multiple crises, demonetisation has come as yet another blow. WHEN the Prime Minister made the decision to withdraw Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes, he did not quite factor in the impact it would have on agriculture. Despite the rhetoric the concept of digital wallets has not yet entered rural India unlike in much of the country’s urban areas, and much of rural and...