-The Times of India KHARAGPUR: A patch of 14 acres in Kenthia village of Kharagpur-II block, which was written off by everyone, has suddenly turned lush green. Go closer and you will see paddy, soybean, groundnuts, sweet corn and sesame plants there. The Kenthia experiment started with three departments of IIT-Kharagpur - agriculture and food technology, biotechnology and industrial engineering - about six months ago. The challenge was to turn a barren patch...
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Fields of Despair -Sutapa Deb
-NDTV There is the reality of a farmer's suicide and then there are versions of this reality. Whether you choose to accept the farmer's context of poverty, debt and extreme risk, or deny it, often depends on the class and profession you belong to. Fields pockmarked with brown mounds create a surreal setting. At least nine suicides by farmers have been linked to the crisis in West Bengal's potato belt. Farmers have...
More »‘India Inc’s major portion of staff suffer from depression’ -G Balachandar
-The Hindu Chennai: Depression is reported to be one of the significant health problems facing the employees of India Inc, says a report of Assocham. Demanding schedules, high stress levels and performance-linked perquisites are having a toll on the health of corporate India's employees. Obesity is the second life style disease they are facing. High blood pressure and diabetes are the third and fourth major diseases, respectively. "Nearly 42.5 per cent of employees...
More »Landmark study lies buried: How Delhi’s poisonous air is damaging its children for life -Pritha Chatterjee & Aniruddha Ghosal
-The Indian Express New Delhi: It doesn't get bigger than this, in size, scale and rigour - scientists from one of India's top cancer institutes tracked 11,000 schoolchildren in Delhi for three years. They were drawn from 36 schools, each within 3 km of a pollution-tracking station. This unprecedented study, by the Kolkata-based Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute (CNCI), found that key indicators of respiratory health, lung function to palpitation, vision to blood...
More »Potato glut & price slump drive 8 farmers to commit suicide in Bengal -Phalguni Banerjee
-The Times of India Kolkata: A potato glut and plunging prices have triggered suicides in Bengal's Hooghly, Burdwan and Bankura districts. Hooghly alone reported six of them. Prices have crashed, one kg of the tuber selling for Rs 3 to Rs 4. With the pressure unlikely to ease in the near future, peasants face an uncertain future and are agitating. In 2013, Bengal's farmers reaped a good harvest of 85 lakh tonnes...
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