-The Hindustan Times Jorhat (Assam): In 2006, ten years after she started selling coconut ladoos to bail her husband out of a debt trap, Meghali Bora met Kangkaan Pegu in Majuli, a 527 sq km island in river Brahmaputra off Jorhat town 305 km east of Guwahati. The latter suffered from bipolar disorder, a manic-depressive illness marked by suicidal tendencies. Bora taught Kangkaan her conquer-adversity mantra: if your life is in a...

-Press Information Bureau (Ministry of Agriculture) With a production of 269 million tonnes in 2012-13, the horticulture sector has emerged as a major contributor to the food basket of the country. Horticulture production grew by more than 8% during the last decade. As compared to the production of 257 million tonnes in the previous year and 215 million tonnes about five years ago, there has been significant jump in the horticulture production,...

-The Hindu With the era of cheap, bountiful water having been replaced by increasing supply-and-quality constraints, many international investors are beginning to view water as the new oil There is a popular, tongue-in-cheek saying in America - attributed to the writer Mark Twain, who lived through the early phase of the California Water Wars - that "whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over." It highlights the consequences, even if...

-The Hindustan Times The Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS), from February 6 to 8, is focusing on the theme ‘Attaining Energy, Water and Food Security for All'. The set of issues defining the importance of the theme can be gauged from an assessment of the situation that we are facing. There are 1.3 billion people who have no access to electricity, and over twice the number are dependent on the use...

-The Hindu     Modified scheme benefits tenants and covers all food grain PUDUKOTTAI (Tiruchirapalli): Crop insurance scheme is being implemented as modified national agricultural insurance scheme in all the 13 blocks in Pudukottai district during 2013-14 based on the administrative sanction accorded by the Centre and approval by the State government. Under the scheme, weather-based crop insurance scheme and coconut palm insurance scheme are implemented at revenue-village-level for losses suffered due to nature's fury....