-The Hindu Bhuira's women are coping with the higher workload by creating vastly more flexible family and community structures. And they are simultaneously pushing towards modernity much faster than their neighbours. Everyone in the village sneaks a glance when Upasana Kumari drives her White Maruti 800 to work. “Driving a car is intoxicating,” says Kumari. A winding, muddy, single lane road that starts from the edge of the hillock where Kumari’s house...
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How wet is the ground after rain? for first time, India gets soil moisture map -Sowmiya Ashok
-The Indian Express This forecast, following a joint exercise by IIT Gandhinagar and the India Meteorological Department (IMD), for the first time, provides a country-wide soil moisture forecast at seven and 30-day lead times. New Delhi: With the rabi season around the corner, a countrywide forecast prepared at the end of the monsoon season suggests deficit soil moisture conditions are likely in Gujarat, Bihar, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu and southern Andhra Pradesh. This forecast,...
More »Kerala's rice bowl is submerged. But for its farmers, paddy is still everything -Shwetha E George
-The Hindu ‘Water hasn’t even receded from my yard yet. How can we start farming in October?’ On either side of the Alappuzha-Changanassery road is a vast expanse of water with an odd canoe bobbing about, or a precariously leaning electrical pole. But these are not the backwaters. I am in Kuttanad, the rice bowl of Kerala, but there is not a paddy crop in sight. Farmers in this area have for generations...
More »Four years after Swachh: cleaning excreta for roti in Rajasthan -Priscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu A Rajasthan village is free of open defecation — on paper Behnara (Bharatpur District): The narrow village street is lined with gutters, dotted with excreta flushed out from latrines inside upper caste homes. Santa Devi pulls a corner of her sari over her mouth and begins to push the morning quota of waste into her metal basin using only a makeshift shovel and broom. Once she has thrown the...
More »Tapping the N-E's organic farming potential -TV Jayan
-The Hindu Business line India’s North-East, comprising eight States, is largely unspoilt by modern agricultural practices, which involve heavy use of agro-chemicals and chemical fertilisers. For this precise reason, the region is a natural choice for promoting organic farming in the country. Sikkim, the first organic State in India, has already shown the way for the other States in the region. According to the estimates available with the Agricultural and Processed...
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