-Centre for Science and Environment * Releases new report that presents irrefutable evidence of the benefits of non-chemical agriculture * Yesterday’s Budget promises to promote chemical-free natural farming, but it is a half-hearted promise at best, as no separate allocation has been made in it, says CSE * CSE’s asks: Invest in organic and natural farming. Make it a mass movement New Delhi, February 2, 2022: “Despite the push given to it through periodic...

-The Hindu Officers are the backbone as files, documents and orders are processed by them Nearly 30% positions are vacant in middle to senior management rank in various Central government Ministries as the Union government has not promoted officials of the Central Secretariat Service (CSS) in the past six years. The employees have petitioned the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to issue Promotion orders as many officials have retired in these years,...

-Financial Express According to Rao, the ICAR committee went through more than 1,400 scientific journals on various methods of Promotion of sustainable agriculture besides interacting with farmers who have claimed to have adopted ZBNF across seven states. Large scale adoption of Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF)  — farm practices which exclude all synthetic chemical inputs and promote use of on-farm biomass — would result in ‘tremendous reduction’ in production of agricultural crops...

-The Telegraph According to the annual reports, funding for the scheme has been declining over the past five years as it has been declared 'closed' The University Grants Commission has stopped several research projects while some are lying dormant allegedly because of lack of funds from the Centre. The Major Research Project (MRP) of higher education regulator UGC is a case in point. According to the annual reports of the UGC, funding for the...

After the release of the second phase data of the National Family Health Survey Fifth Round (NFHS-5), media commentators and experts have written that the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) for India has gone down just below the replacement-level fertility. The TFR for the entire nation was 2.2 in 2015-16, which decreased to 2.0 in 2019-21.   According to the United Nations, the replacement-level fertility is reached when the TFR of a...