-The Hindu With growing environmental distress, policymakers cannot shy away from adopting best eco-management practices In a report last year, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) called the Chennai floods of 2015 a “man made disaster”, a pointer to how the encroachment of lakes and river floodplains has driven India’s sixth largest city to this ineluctable situation. The Chennai floods are a symbol of consistent human failings and poor urban...

-Economic and Political Weekly The dependence of agriculture on natural resources requires sustainable management of these resources for risk mitigation and management, particularly in the context of increasing farmer distress and vulnerability to risks associated with climate change. Using a framework of indicators in the domains of pest management, fertiliser use, soil health, water conservation, biodiversity, and efficient use of inputs, statewise report cards on ecological sustainability of agriculture are provided....

-Business Standard Till the time you don’t give water to a farmer’s fields, you can’t save him from suicide. Intervening in a debate in the state Assembly on July 21, 2015, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra remarked that the state has 40 per cent of the country’s large dams, “but 82 per cent area of the state is rainfed. Till the time you don’t give water to a farmer’s fields, you can’t...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: After years of existing as a repulsive mound of festering garbage, the landfill at Okhla has got a look that is more attractive. One face of the stabilised landfill has finally been “greened” and the capping work continues on the other sides. When the work is over, the overused landfill will get a new avatar as an ecopark. Tufail Ahmed, the engineer in charge of the...

-The Economic Times The government must extend benefits of the PM Kisan scheme to landless farmers and farm workers, said Ajay Vir Jakhar, chairman of the Bharat Krishak Samaj. Promote agri- startups particularly in rural regions, expand micro-irrigation, treat solar energy as third crop to augment income of farmers and enact labour reforms to push creation of off-farm jobs, were few of the suggestion which representatives of the agricultural and rural development...