While any loss in production following the dry spell will further hit the growth story, it will also push up food inflation. considerably. Once again the rain gods are playing truant. With 31 per cent shortfall in June, and with an expectation of only 70 per cent of the predicted 96 per cent rainfall for the July-August months, crucial for farming operations, kharif sowings have already been hit.   In June alone,...

Ranchi: Supreme Court today dismissed a petition filed by local tribals against setting up three national institutes of higher learning on the outskirts of Ranchi, arming a hitherto defensive district administration to deal with the ongoing protests firmly. According to lawyer Rajeev Gupta, representing petitioners Mangu Oraon and others, an apex court division bench comprising Justice H.L. Gokhale and Justice Ranjana Desai observed that “it’s a 50-year old case” which the...

-The Times of India The UPA is likely to rejig the Sonia Gandh-led National Advisory Council(NAC) with four members of the government think-tank for social sector reforms — Jean Dreze, M S Swaminathan, Harsh Mander and Madhav Gadgil — being dropped at the end of their second year tenure. Dreze, an economist and one of the most prominent faces of the NAC, who had strongly advocated for a universal food security, had...

-The Pioneer The land rights given under Forest Rights Act should be used to make these lands so productive that the people become self-sufficient for their daily needs. Government departments must facilitate the change, says VK Bahuguna Land-based resources in areas affected by Maoist violence are the backbone of tribal livelihood. But, population pressure and degradation coupled with poor investment has led to the gradual reduction in the income of the people...

Science and technology hold the key to developing low-input, high-output agriculture. The challenge is to use new technologies creatively and to make evidence-based decisions on the deployment of new technologies. Crop breeding is carried out to meet two broad objectives: one, to increase yields of a crop per se and, two, to protect the yield potential by developing crops resistant to diseases, pests and environmental extremes.  Both yield-enhancement and yield-stabilisation are...