-Hindustan Times In Bollywood romcoms, mustard fields glowing iridescent yellow are an oft-used backdrop for romantic songs. Remember the iconic 1995 hit, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge Mustard, as it were, is an onscreen metaphor for vigour and youthful passion. However, looked through a farm scientist’s lens, the traditional Indian mustard isn’t genetically very impressive. It is only half as robustly growing as its east European cousins. Low yields mean India has to...

-Business Standard The state demands that the insurance scheme should cover the produce lying in market yards, waiting to be bought by agencies Chandigarh: The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, hailed as one of the most farmer-friendly crop insurance schemes of independent India, has run into rough weather in Punjab. The state is at loggerheads with the Centre over the efficacy of the crop insurance scheme. "The new scheme provides an indemnity level...

-The Hindu The Health Ministry’s plan for a malaria-free India by 2030 is laudable, but grand pronouncements are meaningless as long as manipulated data distort our knowledge and bad governance impedes genuine attempts to fight the disease This month, the Health Ministry will unveil an ambitious new plan to eliminate malaria from the country by 2030. A malaria-free India certainly sounds like a dream, or maybe an early campaign promise: the disease...

-The Telegraph The Narendra Modi government's decision to abolish the National Development Council is a further blow against the federal structure of our republic. True, the NDC did not have a constitutional status, and differed in this respect from the Inter-State Council, whose activation was often demanded by the Left, precisely because it was a constitutional body, for deciding inter alia on the composition and terms of reference of finance commissions....

-The Indian Express Clearly, these suicides are the outcome of Indian Caste System-with-“Untouchability”, still omnipresent and omnipotent, and not a thing of the past, confined only to some remote areas. The significance of what led to Rohith Vemula and many other students belonging to Dalits, Adivasis, and also Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEdBCs) to end their life can be understood on the background of socio-historical facts. Clearly, these suicides are the...