-Financial Express We have been hearing the expression ‘Industry 4.0’ ever since the idea of ‘smart factory’ was unveiled in Hannover in April 2013. Many opine ‘Agriculture 4.0’ akin to 4G of telecom. I believe Agriculture 4.0 is “going back to basics, but with technology as its underpinning” to usher in sustainability, in the wake of climate change and degradation of our agricultural ecosystems. We need to re-look at agriculture with...

-Press release by All India Media Conference 2019   New Delhi, September 9, 2019: The fourth edition of All India Media Conference 2019 has come up with a new initiative to promote violence free childhood by organizing Walkathon at Udaipur, celebrating 30 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and 70 years of UNICEF India. A walkathon will be organised to highlight Violence-Free Childhood along the banks of...

-Newsclick.in The draft National Education Policy reinforces outdated ideas about the goals of a foundational literacy programme Many children in elementary classrooms across India cannot read and write proficiently, as demonstrated on an annual basis by the Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER). This affects other school-based learning, as well as functioning in societies and economies that prize literacy. Capabilities of young children It was heartening, therefore, to see a chapter devoted to “Foundational...

-Newsclick.in In an interview, the ‘father’ of India’s Green Revolution, says while technology is necessary, policies on procurement and public distribution are far more important in making agriculture economically viable and sustainable in the country. No one has played a more instrumental role in India’s self-sufficiency in food production than Dr MS Swaminathan — world-renowned agricultural scientist, known as the ‘Father of Green Revolution in India’. After getting a PhD from Cambridge...

-The Hindu The proposal, a version of which has been previously presented to the Congress and to a foundation working with other Opposition parties, has been released in a policy paper titled ‘Strengthening towns through sustainable employment’. With rising unemployment becoming a major poll issue, and several political parties proposing solutions for it in their election manifestos, a group of labour researchers have proposed a national urban job guarantee programme for small...