-The Hindu Assistance to be provided to selected villages to set up rooftop solar panels, rainwater harvesting structures and waste management units Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala): Farmers in 14 villages across the State will soon be equipped with hi- tech and precision farming methods to boost the production of banana and vegetables. The government has accorded administrative sanction for a flagship project mooted by the Agriculture department to establish poly houses and popularise precision farming...

-The Business Standard Panic selling to 'kolhu' (jaggery) units at Rs 160-250 a quintal in western parts of state Lucknow: With uncertainty looming large over sugarcane crushing in Uttar Pradesh (UP), farmers have resorted to selling the cash crop to kolhu (jaggery) units at Rs 160-250 a quintal in western parts of the state. Farmers in Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Baghpat, Meerut and Bijnor have been queuing at kolhus, which make cash payment. There are...

-The Hindustan Times UPA's flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme (NREGA) reduces child malnutrition, but only in the short term, says University of Oxford study. The first effort to analyse the effect of NREGA on child nutrition, the study was carried out on infants in 528 households in Durgarpur district of Rajasthan. During the study period, 53% of the households received payment under NREGA. "Participation in NREGA reduced acute malnutrition, but...

-The Indian Express Internal migration has risen, and for good reason. Policy must shift to support internal mobility, not control it. As India undergoes the transition from a predominantly rural society to one that is urbanising rapidly, there are inevitable flows of people from rural to urban areas. One set of perspectives tells us that this increase in mobility should not be unexpected; after all, classical modernisation and economic development theories do...

-The Business Standard India has to come to terms with a growing obesity problem that is rapidly becoming a crisis Obesity, an epidemic often thought to be exclusive to wealthy countries, is becoming a rapidly growing crisis for India. The National Family Health Survey of 2006 revealed that roughly one in four urban Indians was overweight or obese, and several more recent studies indicate that these numbers are increasing. A new study...