-Down to Earth Incentivising farmers to sell solar power as a remunerative crop can help reduce the usage of diesel pumps The irrigation-energy nexus in India's agriculture sector is characterised primarily by depleting groundwater and a growing debt burden of power distribution companies (DISCOM). This is due to massive power subsidies that remain underfunded by the states.   The Government of India (GoI) has been promoting solar irrigation pumps by offering substantial investment...

-Newslaundry.com India Today’s ‘Focus’ and ‘Impact’ features are a case in point. If it looks like a news report, reads like a news report and is bundled with several other news reports, it must be a news report. Right? Wrong. It could as easily be an advertisement, only you wouldn’t notice if you don’t pay close attention. And that is really the idea: the ad is packaged as a report so you wouldn’t realise...

-Down to Earth More than half of the degraded land in the country is either rainfed farmland, responsible for the food security of the country, or forest land that offers the best defenc With close to 30 per cent of its geographical area already affected, land degradation is definitely among India’s most pressing environmental problems. To make matters worse, almost all Indian states have recorded an increase in degraded land in the...

-The Telegraph New guidelines recommend 130 as upper number threshold for starting medicines for anyone with risk factors or a history of cardiovascular disease and 140/90 for others New guidelines for blood pressure control released by the World Health Organisation on Wednesday recommend 130 as the upper number threshold for starting medicines for anyone with risk factors or a history of cardiovascular disease and 140/90 for others. The guidelines on when to start...

-National Herald It is a scheme to engineer a transfer of income and wealth to those at the apex of the wealth pyramid. It is just a way to hand over wealth created with public money over decades to corporates Camouflaged In jargon that speaks of ‘monetisation of de-risked assets’, the BJP-led NDA government has announced its plan to sell out India’s public sector. In that plan, assets ranging from roads, ports,...