-The Hindu Despite growing clamour for pesticide-free produce, doubts persist about the capability of organic farming to generate high yields Kerala: Organic farming began finding momentum in Kerala since the unveiling of a policy in 2010 that set the goal of converting the entire agricultural production in the State to organic within 10 years. That policy announced by the then Left Democratic Front government is now being fast-tracked by the present United...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A recent study on the city's green cover shows a disturbing trend. Delhi's vegetation has seen an overall decline since 1986. The green cover is also increasingly becoming fragmented, the study reveals. The highest fragmentation is being seen on the periphery where afforestation work is being conducted to compensate for the loss of trees to urban development projects. However, it is also only on the periphery that...

-The Indian Express The big question in the minds of everyone who can recall is: Will 2015 for Marathwada turn out worse than the worst-ever drought of 1972? Parbhani (Maharashtra): Sadashiv Kathurappa Gajmal, 44, has long stopped introducing himself as a farmer. “I am a labourer,” says this father of four and owner of 2.5 acres of land in Charthana village of Parbhani’s Jintur taluka. Unfortunately, he has had little or no...

-The Indian Express Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Bill justifies its need to make procedural parts of these decades old laws simple and to mitigate undue hardship that people have to suffer. Gandhinagar: The Assembly on Thursday passed two key bills to help facilitate rapid industrialisation and urbanisation in Gujarat. While the Gujarat Agricultural Land Ceiling (Amendment) Bill, 2015, proposes use of surplus farm land for industrial purpose, the Gujarat Tenancy...

-The Statesman It's the same story every year. Heavy rains, huge volume of water spilling over the water channels and mismanagement of rivers in spate, leading to heavy floods inundating large parts of India. This year too the story is no different. Even as this article goes to print, Assam, West Bengal, Manipur, Odisha, Gujarat and Rajasthan almost a third of India is either facing floods or coping with a trail...