-Civil Society Online Bhubaneswar: Laxman Goud, a 35-year-old farmer in Thakurpalli village in Komna block of Nuapada district of Odisha, used to lead a very simple life. He was a devoted follower of Mahima Dharma, a subaltern religion practised by underprivileged castes in Odisha. One morning, he took his life in desperation. He couldn’t repay Rs 19,000 he had borrowed from a local moneylender at 36 per cent interest. Goud had invested...

-Business Standard Indian farming was transformed after the mid-60s, on a wave of new agri technology and allied changes, but the costs of this model can no longer be ignored or its addressing be postponed It was around the mid-1960s when the Paddock brothers, the ‘prophets of doom’, predicted that in another decade, recurring famines and an acute shortage of foodgrain would push India towards disaster.   Their prophecy was based on a...

-Business Standard Because of low yields, pulses accounts for less than 10% of India's annual foodgrains output, though it occupies 20% of area under foodgrains New Delhi: As the country grapples with recurring increase in pulses price, scientists at the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) have come up with a solution to address the shortage in the commodity. Scientists at Kanpur-based Indian Institute of Pulses Research (IIPR), an affiliate organisation of ICAR,...

-FirstPost.com Ram Naresh, who runs a small tea-snacks shop in Navi Mumbai isn’t really keen to discuss politics. “After all, what difference does it make to me? No matter who rules, prices keep going up,” Naresh says. Naresh, hails from a rural village in Uttar Pradesh, is clearly upset with the way prices of Dal and Onion has gone up of late. He gets to save a little from his daily earnings...

-PTI KOLKATA: Having lost the race to high- yielding varieties after the green revolution, a number of indigenous varieties of rice are now making a comeback due to their aroma, taste, low input cost and resilience to climate change. "More and more consumers are asking for the folk varieties these days as the taste is better. Farmers are also showing lot of interest in these varieties, which they had once forgotten," MC...