-The Hindu The government’s claim that it will dampen inflation, bring higher prices for farmers and lower prices for customers may be somewhat exaggerated With the intention of signalling a strong commitment to reforms, the UPA government has announced a hike in the price of diesel and liberalisation of foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, justifying the measures as growth-enhancing and inflation-dampening. They have been termed bold by India’s corporate sector...

-PTI Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today said the ground water level in the country is decreasing and there is an urgent need to check this through encouraging Micro Irrigation. "The ground water table in the country has come down in the last few years and in order to check this we should work with technologies like drip and sprinkler irrigation, which minimises loss of water," Pawar said in his inaugural address at...

-The Economic Times PUNE: In a country where about a third of farmland is drought-prone, farmers have started adopting technologies that help mitigate the impact of water scarcity and maximise output with minimum inputs. Micro Irrigation is the known technology to save water which has been used successfully by countries like Israel. Despite government subsidy, Micro Irrigation is not affordable to a large number of farmers. This has led to a widespread...

-Inclusion.in There is good news. And there’s bad news. The good news first. There’s been a bumper wheat crop and the granaries are overflowing. And the bad news? Where do we begin? A lot of that grain will rot. Millions will still remain hungry. Heavily in debt and distressed, farmers are committing suicide. Food prices are soaring. There’s more… Farmers don’t have money. Their land is too small and isn’t yielding much. Fertilisers and...

-The Telegraph The Jharkhand government is uneasy, a bit tense even, about tomorrow’s visit to Saranda by Union minister Jairam Ramesh who has time and again made public his displeasure at the slow implementation of his development initiative in the former Naxalite hub of West Singhbhum. In his latest missive, sent to chief minister Arjun Munda on June 18, the architect of the Saranda Development Plan highlighted a number of “worrying” issues,...