-The Hindu These crops can fix atmospheric nitrogen through their root nodules. This reduces the use of chemical fertilisers like urea and ammonium nitrate. At a time when decreasing soil fertility especially due to indiscriminate use of chemical fertilisers and prolonged cultivation of commercial crops has become a cause for concern among farmers, legume vegetables have turned out to be a boon for addressing this issue. Scientists feel that growing the legume vegetables...

Gujarat, which is hailed as a role model of growth and development, witnessed the lowest calorie intake per person per day in rural areas among the 17 major states of India during 2011-12. This has been revealed by the 68th round National Sample Survey report entitled Nutritional Intake in India 2011-12 (See chart 1). It can be inferred from the NSSO report that except Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan, the daily...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-The Times of India Blog Chouhan and other state leaders must not ban this super-food for growing children from midday meals Many Indian states have started providing eggs with midday meals, either in schools or in anganwadis or both. This is the best thing that has happened for a long time in the field of social policy. Indian children are among the most undernourished in the world. They are starved of protein, vitamins,...

The fourteenth Public Accounts Committee (2014-15) report, submitted to the 16th Lok Sabha in April this year, has found that despite various interim orders issued by the Supreme Court from time to time (based on a writ petition that was filed by People’s Union for Civil Liberties in April, 2001), the Government of India has failed to universalize the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme. This means India has to...