-The New Indian Express   Most people would have been shocked to read the year-end report that India has been ranked 63rd, much below countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, on the Global Hunger Index (GHI), a yardstick used by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to comprehensively measure global hunger. The index is calculated as an average of three indices-undernourishment, underweight children and low child mortality rate-and is measured on a...

-Deccan Herald A novel Technology-aided crop protection programme helps farmers in Raichur combat pests and diseases. M A Siraj reveals the secret behind the healthy produce in Raichur. Information Technology (IT) is no longer the exclusive preserve of the city folk. It is making subtle inroads into farming communities of Karnataka. Those who saw the elitist bias in IT would be better off making amends if they thought an e-future only a...

-Outlook Jammu: Agriculture and Rural development bank Nabard today called for farmer-friendly policies and increase in investments to give boost to the agriculture sector in Jammu and Kashmir, which is the mainstay of the state. Asserting that nothing much has been done by the respective government after the land-to-tiller mega decision of former Chief Minister Sheikh Mohmmad Abdullah, a senior Nabard official said that there was a need for carrying forward the...

-The Indian Express Kutch (Gujarat): Bhajan Singh, 62, remembers the time curious villagers turned up to see a borewell his father Gopal Singh had dug up. The year was 1969 and it was the first time Sumrasar village, near Bhuj in Kutch district, had had a borewell. Few had ever seen it work, as they depended entirely on rainwater for the barely one crop they harvested a year. Originally from Pakistan, Gopal...

-Economic and Political Weekly     The usual explanations for the divergence between calorie intake and consumption expenditure in India ignore the enormous squeeze on food budgets arising from dispossession (leading to loss of access to common property resources), rising migration (involving a loss of access to non-market food items) and the forced turn to the private sector for social sector services that are more expensive than public sector provision. It is the...