Madhya Pradesh accounts for nearly 40 per cent of the total area under certified organic farming in the country. Though most of it is due to cotton fields, the state has an immense potential to bring even food crops under organic cultivation.   What may help the state’s cause is that agriculture is already organic by default in many tribal-dominated districts because farmers either don't have the resources to use chemical fertilizers...

The government appears to be working towards an amicable solution on the question of who can collect biometric information data for the Indian population. There has been disagreement about whether this will be done by the UIDAI headed by Nandan Nilekani, or the National Population Register headed by Home Minister P. Chidambaram. It now seems that both may continue to collect data but share its use. When any country sets about...

After right to education and information, citizens will soon get right to clean drinking water and sanitation. In a new draft National Water Policy, the water resources ministry has suggested that the access to safe drinking water and sanitation be regarded as a right. Around one-third of the Indians don't have access to clean drinking water and more than half of the country's population to clean sanitation. Only 42.2% people in Jharkhand and...

-PTI Falling prices of vegetables such as potatoes and onions pushed down the food price index by 0.42 per cent in the week ended January 7, over the same period of the previous year. However, experts feel that the decline in prices of food articles will not be enough to prompt the Reserve Bank of India to cut key interest rates at its forthcoming monetary policy review on January 24. Food inflation as...

-The Deccan Chronicle   India needs to have a proper set of protocols and a credible regulatory mechanism to address issues related to genetically modified crops, according to Abhijit Sen, member of the Planning Commission. Mr Sen was addressing a gathering at the inaugural day of the two-day international seminar on ‘Biotechnology in Indian agriculture: performance, potential and concerns’ here on Wednesday. He said that the attempt to introduce Bt brinjal failed because...