A decline in pollinating insects in India is resulting in reduced vegetable yields and could limit people's access to a nutritional diet, a study warns. Indian researchers said there was a "clear indication" that pollinator abundance was linked to productivity. They added that the loss of the natural service could have a long-term impact on the farming sector, which accounts for almost a fifth of the nation's GDP. Globally, pollination is estimated to...

Sunita Laxman Jadhav is a door-to-door saleswoman who sells waiting. She sweeps along muddy village lanes in her nurse’s white sari, calling on newly married couples with an unblushing proposition: Wait two years before getting pregnant, and the government will thank you. It also will pay you. “I want to tell you about our Honeymoon package,” began Ms. Jadhav, an auxiliary nurse, during a recent house call on a new bride in...

An outbreak of papaya mealy bug has affected hundreds of acres of papaya grown in and around Kannivadi and Reddiyarchatram regions in Dindigul district. Since the bug has caused severe damage to the crops, farmers have incurred huge losses. The mealy bug is a polyphagous sucking pest that infests crops such as cotton, papaya, tapioca, mulberry, jatropha and other cultivable crops. The pest sucks the sap of the plant and weakens...

Since she could remember, labourer Rama Nag (34) didn't know what her ration card meant, that as one of India's nearly 400 million officially poor people, she was entitled to subsidised foodgrain. Until 2006, here in the heart of impoverished tribal India, on the edge of the sprawling forests of Bastar and the Maoist zone of Dantewada, Nag and her family of four survived on rice and whatever they could...

Honey hubs to be created for SC/STs at Kodaikanal, Vadipatti and Kadayam Priority for small projects in the range of Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 3 lakh Emphasis on production of fly-ash bricks and palm products The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) plans to focus on creating employment opportunities for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/STs) in rural areas of southern districts. The Central Government body plans to start new khadi institutions near their habitations...