-The Times of India   PATIALA: Just days after the Lok Sabha election results, anger is palpable in rural Punjab against the ruling dispensation as farmers are not getting even half the power supply promised by the government. They are forced to spend on diesel to run pumpsets for drawing water from tubewells to irrigate nurseries of paddy, transplanting of which would commence next month. Paddy is the biggest kharif crop of Punjab...

-The Indian Express   MGNREGA is beset with failures of planning, execution, monitoring and accountability. This election season, we have seen the BJP seeking the people's mandate on the slogan "sab ka saath, sab ka vikas". The Congress harps primarily on a "we gave you" list. The first in this list is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA). The 11th Five Year Plan recognised that 30 crore people lived below the...

-The Guardian   Tamil Nadu farmer produces bumper crop four times larger than average using system of rice intensification An Indian farmer has set a state and possibly a national record for growing rice using a neglected method of cultivation that has been dismissed by academic researchers and received little financial backing from agribusiness. According to Jaisingh Gnanadurai, joint director of agriculture in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, farmer S Sethumadhavan from...

-The Hindu   Rice, a major crop in Andhra Pradesh, is cultivated using water from borewells, tanks or open wells. Since the crop grows in standing water ground water depletion is usually high especially during summer. In addition to the Water Shortage, non-availability of labour on time is also increasing the cost of production, forcing farmers to give up rice cultivation citing low productivity and high labour costs as reasons. Different approach A different look...

-The Hindu   Miners violate rules; panchayat witnesses 24-hour mining Thrissur (Kerala): Rampant clay mining has led to the destruction of paddy fields and acute shortage of water at Nenmanikkara panchayat, near here. The local farmers point out that the panchayat used to have more than 600 hectares of paddy field. According to the development report of the panchayat, 97.6 per cent of paddy fields have been destroyed. The clay mining has turned...