-The Times of India Dehradun: The organic food craze is slowly gripping the hill state capital with stores offering the healthy variety mushrooming across the Doon Valley over the last one year. Doonites buying groceries can be increasingly seen hovering in the organic section of stores like '365 forever' in cantonment area and 'Fresh n Easy' in Crossroads mall, trying to stock up on cereals, pulses, wheat flour, grains, spices, edible oils,...

-Livemint.com Farmers’ welfare is a multi-dimensional issue, with the farm ministry playing a small but significant role Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement to rename the ministry of agriculture to ministry of agriculture and farmers’ welfare may be symbolic, but is at the least a recognition of the stress in rural economy. The stress, particularly in the farming sector, is now all too obvious with the increase in suicides being reported in many...

Did anyone ever tell you that there exists rural-urban, class as well as caste gap in households’ access to clean fuel for cooking and lighting? This has been revealed by a new report from the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO). (Please see the links below). The NSS 68th round report entitled Energy Sources of Indian Households for Cooking and Lighting has found that more than two-third of urban households used...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: Inadequate rains and farmers selling land to make way for industries to be one of the main reasons that have led to Gujarat's farms yield to be lower by 71 lakh tones in 2014-15. This was revealed last week after the state agriculture department sent production estimates for 2014-15 to the central government. Gujarat's cultivation area for rabi, kharif and summer crops went down by 32.42 lakh...

-The Times of India AHMEDABAD: Gujarat has recorded a negative growth of 3.89 per cent in 2012-13 the lowest in the country according to a Government of India study called 'Agriculture Statistics 2014'. The study also cites neighbouring Madhya Pradesh as having recorded highest growth in agriculture and allied sectors in 2012-13 and 2013-14. However, officials are yet to finalize their conclusions as Gujarat is yet to submit its data for...