-PSainath.org At least ten farmers have killed themselves every day, on average, for a straight ten years in the rich state of Maharashtra. Nation-wide the farm suicides total nears the 300,000-mark, as the data of the National Crime Records Bureau show. At least 3,146 farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra in 2013, the latest data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) show. That brings the total number of farmers taking their own...

-Economic and Political Weekly   The emphasis on use of digital technologies to bridge the "rural-urban gap" in the union budget is limited to high talk and minimal allocations. The need for a more comprehensive and peoples' participation-oriented rural action plan should have been the focus while setting sectoral allocations, but that is not to be in this mid-year budget. Vipul Mudgal (vipulmudgal@gmail.com) heads the Inclusive Media for Change project at the Centre...

-The Hindustan Times That India's food chain is heavily contaminated is well known. Even then the latest study by the Centre for Science and Environment, a public interest Research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, on the growing antibiotic resistance in humans, thanks to indiscriminate use of antibiotics in poultry industry is frightening. The report, which was released on Wednesday, claims that Indians are developing resistance to antibiotics and so...

-The Pioneer The Government must establish Research & development and innovation centres at the village level, which can be instrumental in evolving solutions for the actual problems being faced on day-to-day basis by the farming community The agriculture sector today faces multiple problems, thanks to insufficient rainfall, falling crop productivity and failures coupled with low profitability. Climate change, air pollution, frequent droughts and other adversities have brought the farmers to their knees,...

-The Financial Express The Narendra Modi government's decision to disallow field trials of 15 varieties of genetically modified (GM) crops came on top of several state governments virtually thwarting such trials of 45 GM crop varieties approved by the regulator during the previous UPA regime. The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) gave approval for 45 GM crop trials ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. However, states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha,...