-The World Bank blog "Five years ago, I was no one," said Kunti Devi to me, sitting up straight against the wall of her one-room mud hut in Bara, a small village in India's eastern state of Bihar. "Now, people know me by my own name, not just by the name of my children." I was sitting on the floor, across from Devi, a mother of eight, who belonged to one of...

-The Hindu     ‘We have cashew on over 150 acres in the district now' Bidar: Vidya Sagar Patil still remembers the reactions of his neighbours when he decided to plant cashew on his family's land at Malchapur four years ago. "They thought I was mad. Some were blunt enough to tell me to my face, while others just gave me a weird look. After a while I stopped reasoning it out with them and...

-Down to Earth A Sehore farmer finds a unique pigeon pea variety that bears pods three to four times in a row When their two soybean crops failed in two consecutive years, farmer Raj Kumar Rathore tried to convince his parents to experiment with other crops. But it only angered them. They were not ready to give up farming the traditional crop of Madhya Pradesh's Sehore district. He was ousted from the...

-PTI PUNE: A unique concept of "urban agriculture" is taking shape on a massive stretch of land in a mega township which is part of the burgeoning metropolis. Spread across 700 acres, 'Nanded city', which houses a population of about 10,000 residents, launched a green project coinciding with the World Environment Day on June 5. The venture envisages growing vegetables, fruits, medicinal and aromatic plants and flowers to cater the needs of the...

-The Hindu Violence against the state is tragic but it contains the seeds of rejection. Only an inclusive approach that respects human rights can eliminate extremism Perhaps no other chain of events in the recent past has had a more direct and substantial impact on the life of human beings across the world than acts of terror. Terrorism has not only affected our lives directly, but has also allowed the state to...