-Newsclick.in Devastated by the pandemic and lockdown, people are now facing a back-breaking inflation, especially in everyday food items like vegetables. In just the past month, inflation (annual price rise) has zoomed up, delivering a body blow to family budgets. Recently released government data shows that retail inflation rate hit an eight-month high of 7.34%, up from 6.69% in August. This is general inflation, including all items of Consumption. For food items, the...

-The Indian Express "In terms of Gross State Value Added or GSVA, the economy will likely see 7.4 per cent plunge in the October-December quarter from a year ago. To make matters worse, the number will only worsen further with demand remaining subdued,” a senior government source said. Mumbai: With business activity and Consumption set back by Covid-19 cases, the state government’s latest economic forecast has projected 16.4 per cent contraction in...

-The Hindu As for milk and milk products, only 8.7% in rural and 14.3% of the population in urban areas consumed as per the recommended intakes. Hyderabad: City-based Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Nutrition (ICMR-NIN) has initiated ‘Mapping of nutrition and health status – A national level participatory real-time data generation programme’ to develop a mobile-based device to be used by nutrition researchers at district level nationwide during this ongoing...

-Down to Earth Complex groundwater systems cannot be controlled or predicted, but need to be better managed and made more efficient The Central Ground Water Authority’s (GGWA) latest guideline — banning the grant of no-objection certificates (NoC) for extracting groundwater to all new industries coming up in ‘over-exploited’ areas — is yet another duplication of previous failed policy regulations. By implication, the new regulatory policy is not pretentious about looking at the problem...

-The Indian Express Nearly half a century later, millet is making a comeback, thanks to the intervention of the local administration and NGOs. Today, Hanhaga is among 1990 farmers across 163 villages in Keonjhar who have taken up the cultivation of millet. Keonjhar: In the 1960s and ’70s, with the advent of the green revolution, the Indian taste for cereal tilted towards wheat and rice. This was the time when Rumbi Hanhaga (56),...