-Down to Earth From providing agricultural information for specific countries to identifying trends in the sector, censuses serve a variety of purpose In the backdrop of a round of country-driven agricultural censuses which will begin in 2016 to gather information and statistics on the global agriculture sector, senior FAO statiscian Jairo Castano discusses with Down To Earth the importance of the exercise. * How helpful are agricultural censuses in gathering information and statistics...

-The Hindu Business Line A tribal woman shows farmers how to transform their lives by adopting efficient and environmentally friendly practices “I don’t know your name, Collector Sahib, but you are very welcome in our village,” says Leelaben Karsanbhai, 30. Like a seasoned speaker, she is addressing a meeting of 100-odd villagers and all the bada sahib who have descended on the tribal village of Katarvad, 130 km east of Vadodara, Gujarat,...

-Financial Express The country must double its support to farmers, from the current levels of about 6-8% of the value of agri-output It was in the mid-1980s that the ‘India-Bharat’ phraseology was fist pushed into political jargon, by farmers’ leader Sharad Joshi, with ‘India’ representing the urban elite of the country and ‘Bharat’ synonymous with its neglected rural folk. Joshi, at the time, was leading lakhs of farmers protesting against anti-farmer policies,...

-Hindustan Times Faridkot/Bathinda: Jagroop Singh owns seven acres of agricultural Land in a village of Faridkot district. All of it was under the long-duration paddy (PUSA 44) harvested on October 17. He then had barely 10 days to prepare his field for wheat sowing. The seasoned cultivator did not think twice before putting a matchstick to his paddy crop residue littered all over his field. The stubble went up in flames within...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The government is set to test a new strategy to build highways, using geofoam - or giant lightweight polystyrene blocks - in a bid to slash construction time and costs and increase the life span of roads by reducing the risk of rain-triggered damage. Officials said the Union ministry of road transport and highways had cleared a proposal to use Thermocol, a popular geofoam brand, as the filler...