In Chhattisgarh, people swear by the PDS, which has witnessed a revival since 2004 when the government revamped it. IN Chhattisgarh, as part of the survey on public distribution system (PDS) versus cash transfers, a team of student volunteers visited 12 villages spread across Mahasamund and Sarguja districts. The State may have been in the news for all the wrong reasons in recent times, but the way its PDS worked...

 Standing on the shimmering white beach and gazing out at the turquoise blue waters of the Arabian sea, it is hard to believe that a decade ago this international tourist destination was under siege by mounting heaps of garbage. But Kovalam, about 12 km north of Thiruvananthapuram, capital of southern Kerala state, has been declared a ‘zero waste area’ by a women’s self-help group (SHG) which is engaged in recycling waste...

-The Hindu   MSSRF signs MoU with Marg Limited Food inflation could not be tackled in a generic way but has to be broken down and examined commodity by commodity, said M.S. Swaminathan, agricultural scientist. After signing MoU with Marg Limited on a partnership to provide knowledge connectivity to empower rural communities, Prof. Swaminathan said it was the price of vegetables, pulses, oil seeds, potatoes, onions and fruits that were climbing up and not...

Civil society groups on Tuesday came out strongly against the Centre’s draft National Food Security Bill, which has not incorporated the National Advisory Council’s suggestion for providing maternity entitlements to about 15 crore women in the informal (non-Government) sector, as in the Central Government, thereby denying food security (breast feeding) to infants.  Similarly, the current legal guarantee of 'hot cooked meals' for children attending anganwadis has been diluted by providing the...

At BANCON (annual bankers' conference) 2011 in Chennai, financial institutions explored avenues for greater participation in agriculture and rural development. There are a few areas in need of additional attention and investment. Green Revolution technologies are scale-neutral but not resource-neutral. Inputs are needed for output; therefore market-purchased inputs become important in providing soil and plant healthcare for higher yields. Social scientists point out that small and marginal farmers will be excluded...