-Scroll.in As the Centre looks to modify the rules on cattle trade, it would do well to consult experts about how the changes would affect farmers. With the government’s assurance to the Supreme Court on Tuesday that it would suspend implementation of new regulations on cattle trade, the nation’s cows, bullocks, bulls and buffaloes are back on the front page. The new rules, notified in May, had been greeted by vociferous...

-The Times of India DELHI: The report of a fire literally on the Ganga prompted noted environmentalist and lawyer M C Mehta to file a PIL in the Supreme Court over 32 years ago. Discharge of inflammable effluents from nearby industries in Haridwar had caused the fire on water and subsequently triggered the chain of events which culminated in Thursday's NGT judgement directing both central and state authorities to take multiple...

-Deccan Chronicle The slogan was that there would never again be scarcity of food because we can now make “bread from air”. There are two distinct futures of food and farming. One leads to a dead end. A dead planet: poisons and chemical monocultures spreading; farmers committing suicide due to debt for seeds and chemicals; children dying due to lack of food; people dying because of chronic diseases spreading due to nutritionally empty, toxic...

-The Economic Times Farmers are agitated. Loan waivers have not stemmed protests or farmer suicides. This is a multidimensional problem and also a huge political opportunity for parties that can think constructively. Waiving loans is bad policy. It adds to the fiscal stress of states, straining under the electricity utility debt they have taken over. The states would undo the Centre’s hard-wrought fiscal discipline, scaring rating agencies. Waived loans BRIng little benefit to...

-The Indian Express Makka ki roti aur sarson ka sag is a popular food item in northern India, in particular, Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh where both maize and mustard are widely grown. All vegetarian dishes made in much of northern, eastern and western India are cooked in mustard (sarson) oil. Why, suddenly, has mustard taken centre stage? GM mustard has begun to stir both the scientific and activist lobbies,...