Expanding irrigation network in the country is considered as essential to raise agricultural production in the face of increased frequency of droughts. However, a newly released report from the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare shows that there has actually been a fall in the growth rate of net irrigated area during the recent two decades. The report entitled State of Indian Agriculture 2015-16 reveals that the growth rate in...

-The Telegraph Algiers (Algeria): At a time when a debate over triple talaq and the need for a uniform civil code rages in India, a Sunni Muslim-dominated country that Vice-President Hamid Ansari just visited offers some interesting insight. Algeria, the north African country that figures in the Modi regime's Africa outreach, last year adopted a law criminalising domestic violence against women despite conservative Muslims terming it an intrusion into a couple's privacy. The...

-Down to Earth A global report focuses on sustainable agricultural growth, increased wages and creation of off-farm jobs to bring about rapid rural development. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) report says economic growth alone is not enough to eliminate rural poverty, particularly in the Asia and Pacific region. “The rapid economic growth in the region has come at a cost. Urbanisation has led to a wide income gap between rural and...

-IANS New Delhi: With current availability of water per person per year in India placed at roughly 1,745 cubic metres, experts have called for trans-boundary water governance to tackle the water-stressed situation and, keeping climate change in mind, creation of a water infrastructure. India in 2016 faced one of its worst droughts in decades which affected almost 330 million people. "As per studies conducted two years back, 1,745 cubic metre per person...

-Livemint.com Maharashtra’s farmer-to-consumer markets and APMC reforms are changing the state’s agriculture sector, long-burdened by economic and political pressures Mumbai: These days, Lata Arun Dimble is out at 8am in her farm in Khed Shivapur. Along with husband Arun and son Ajit, she picks brinjal, tomato, chilly, cucumber, spinach, radish, bitter gourd, cabbage, cauliflower, and green peas. By 11am, the vegetables are loaded onto a mini-truck her husband owns. It’s the same story...