-The Indian Express Under the proposed system, payment of subsidy is to be based on weekly settlement of claims from actual sales data captured on POS machines. Buoyed by its landslide win in the recent Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the Narendra Modi government has decided to fast-track the implementation of the direct benefit transfer (DBT) system for payment of fertiliser subsidy to farmers. From the coming kharif season, beginning June, the Rs...

-Scroll.in The Forest Rights Act recognises the rights of forest dwelling communities and entrusts them with the responsibility for conservation. The residents of Gunehar village in himachal pradesh’s Kangra district are attempting to use the Forest Rights Act to challenge the state Forest Department’s decision to hand over two hectares of local forest land to the Wildlife Department to construct an office complex. At the end of December, the Gunehar panchayat...

-IANS Shimla: himachal pradesh, whose economy largely banks on agriculture and horticulture, aims to develop bio villages by promoting organic farming. The state is also eyeing investment in cold chains. An additional 2,000 hectares will be brought under organic farming and there are plans to develop 200 bio-villages in the next fiscal, a government spokesperson told IANS. He said farmers in the bio-villages would use only bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides and discourage...

-The Hindu Business Line 'Above normal' temperatures forecast across the country Prepare for a scorching summer as the India Meteorological Department has forecast “above normal” temperatures across most of the country. himachal pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir — or hill-station States popular among tourists wanting to escape the heat — are expected to be particularly hot with predicted temperatures, on average, likely to be well above 1 degree C above their normal...

-The Times of India A striking feature of the poll campaign in Uttarakhand is that neither of the two major political parties have any concrete strategy for a crisis that's haunting nearly half the state's population. Since 2000, when the state was created, foodgrain production has gone down by 6% and land under cultivation by 11%. In neighbouring himachal pradesh, with similar mountainous terrain, foodgrain output increased by 29% while the country...