-The Hindu Business Line FSSAI issues order on 24 items even as it works on regulations for GM foods Come January 1, 2021, importers of 24 major food crops will have to mandatorily declare that the products are not genetically-modified and that they also have a non-GM origin. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has come out with this order to ensure that only non-GM food crops come into the...

-Down to Earth Punjab has paid a price for food security. The use of pesticides and fertilisers has resulted in a number of health issues for the state’s population Punjab — known as the ‘Granary of India’ — produces 20 per cent and nine per cent of India’s wheat and rice respectively. At the international level, this represents three per cent of the global production of these crops. The state is responsible...

-India Water Portal The time for quick fixes is over; a comprehensive policy overhaul is urgently needed to impede the juggernaut of Punjab's groundwater depletion. Punjab, a small state in northwest India, derives its name from the Persian words panj (five) and āb (water), meaning the "land of five rivers". Ironically, this state is now regularly in the news for its rapidly depleting groundwater levels. The most recent government report on Punjab's...

-Hindustan Times According to the Central Ground Water Board’s 2019 report, state tops the country in over-exploitation of groundwater at 79% Patiala: The proposed reduction in the area to be covered under traditional water-guzzling paddy in Punjab this year due to labour shortage is likely to give some respite to already depleting groundwater table in the state. As per the target set by the state agriculture department, the department is expecting to reduce...

-The Hindu Among this year’s Padma Shri awardees are a father and daughter who turned a barren wasteland into a riot of trees and crops Furrowed with deep gullies, its topsoil all but gone, this degraded patch of land near Odagaon in Odisha’s Nayagarh district was once a dense forest. Whenever nature tried to reclaim it, the little shoots would be nibbled away by goats and sheep. The villagers who owned the...