JAMUGURIHAT, Sept 6 – At a time when the cultivators of Assam are spending their days in hopelessness and agony because of the long spell of drought, a new method of Cultivation named SRI has brought a ray of hope to them as by this method Ahu rice production can be doubled. This new method of Cultivation SRI (System of Rice Intensification) brought from Madagascar, has yielded desired results from...

Dr M.S. Swaminathan, considered the Father of the Green Revolution in India, finally stated his views on genetically-modified (GM) crops in an opinion piece published on August 26, 2009, in this newspaper. GM crops are produced by inserting foreign genes, mostly non-plant genes (bacterial, viral and animal genes) for obtaining hitherto non-existent, new characteristics in a crop. For instance, the Bt class of GM crops like Bt cotton and Bt...

Five farmers committed suicide from the Vidarbha region of Maharastra within the last two days of the month of August, 2009. The farmers who committed suicides belonged to the districts for which special relief package was being announced recently. According to a press note circulated by the Vidarbha People’s Movement Committee, within the last 48 hours of August, farmers were forced to commit suicide as they faced crop failures owing...

What’s more important to a hungry child? Food now, or future environmental worries? I know I’m on sticky ground here, but it would be hypocritical not to ask the question when the world is mourning the death of one person who, literally, helped save millions in the developing world — in our part of it, especially — from hunger. In his lifetime, Norman Borlaug was hailed as the father of...

Just when everyone thought that the debate over large dams was settled against displacement, mega dams are back in business. Refusing to learn from our own mistakes are the three newly created states, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. The three states are locked in battles against one another to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to construct several large dams and barrages ostensibly to give a push to a new wave of...