-The Indian Express As both IARI and IISS continued refining their respective products, procurement under the soil health card scheme gathered steam when the government sanctioned setting up over 6,000 mini labs in 2016-2017. New Delhi: Despite objections raised by senior officers, a low-cost digital soil-testing technology developed by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), has been tweaked by a sister ICAR institute...

-The Hindu Business Line At an organic market in Odisha, middle-class consumers get to interact with the producers of their food and appreciate traditional knowledge systems One Sunday morning in January, I visited an organic produce market located amidst dense bougainvillea creepers and rows of trees, on the grounds of the six-decade-old Christian Hospital in Bissamcuttack, a town in western Odisha’s Rayagada district. In policy and public imagination, Odisha, particularly its western districts...

-Hindustan Times None of the states had 100% access to toilets. Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar was in a spot on Tuesday when he claimed that rural areas in five states had become Open Defecation Free (ODF). But the findings of Swachh Survekshan, commissioned by the Union Drinking Water and Sanitation ministry, that he released, belied his claims. The survey conducted by the Quality Council of India (QCI) with 1.4 lakh households in 4626...

-Hindustan Times The government Sarvodaya co-ed senior secondary school in Rohini Sector 21, which was opened on April 1, boasts of a swanky building with 69 rooms, including yoga room, music room, mathematics laboratory, and science laboratory. Dressed in a blue shirt, navy blue pants and a matching tie, Class 11 student Harsh Rawat feels no different studying at a government school than what he used to at a nearby private school...

-The Times of India A group of girls, almost all in shorts, are dancing after a wonderful strike that fetched them a goal. The goal wouldn't count much, in fact it doesn't count at all during a coaching camp. But for these girls, it's much more than just the sight of the ball crashing into the net that brings delight. For years, these girls from Mumbra have braved odds just to be...