-Down to Earth System of crop intensification, specially in rice, has shown sizeable savings in water and seed usage. Yet its adoption has not spread despite incentives SIMPLE TECHNIQUES and manag-ement practices tend to be viewed with suspicion. In the age of input-intensive agriculture which calls for an array of machinery and a host of scientific props, a crop management system whose core basically is protecting the plant's roots to provide better...

-Down to Earth India ranked 19th among 45 developing countries assessed by UK-based organisation India has made quite some progress in countering hunger and under-nutrition in the past two years but Nepal and Bangladesh have done better and have shown serious commitment through political will, says the Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index (HANCI) report, 2013. The annual HANCI report, prepared by non-profit Institute of Development Studies and International Food Policy Research Institute funded...

-The Hindu   The national discourse is so superficial that it only talks of foreign direct investment, investment allowance, tax sops and the like which are just about a twentieth to a sixth of the national economy. It did not even notice paragraph 102 in the Union budget speech which is about half of India's economy. Commentators see facts hidden in budgets as the "devil's in the detail." This presumes that only...

-The Hindu   The urban future depends on making cities intelligent, and that applies equally to both new and old parts of the city Smart cities, the flagship project of the Bharatiya Janata Party's urban vision, have received a firm financial allocation in the Union budget. The government has provided Rs.7,060 crore to build 100 smart cities as satellite towns on the outskirts of large cities to accommodate the burgeoning urban population. Foreign...

-The Hindu Overall, the Budget places considerable emphasis on agricultural renewal and agrarian prosperity. Obviously, the allocations are small but a beginning has been made to look at the problems in farming in a more holistic manner. The Union Budget is a resource allocation exercise. The priorities in the allocation were indicated in the address of the President to Parliament on June 9. While the President's address provides a framework for political...