-PTI CHANDIGARH: Punjab government has chalked out an ambitious Rs 1,900 crore plan for the implementation of the " Greening Punjab Mission" with the target to increase the forest area from 7 to 15 per cent in next seven years. Under this ambitious mission, 40 crore saplings are to be planted on various places across the state, forest and wildlife preservation minister, Surjit Kumar Jyani, said in a release here. Under the...

-The Economic Times India's GDP growth has almost halved from 9.2% in 2010-11 to 5% in 2012-12. Major problems include a high current account deficit, high fiscal deficit, and lack of bank credit for small and medium enterprises. All three problems can be mitigated substantially by one single measure - reducing excess food stocks. So say Ashok Gulati and Surabhi Jain, chairman and joint director respectively of the Commission for Agricultural...

-Down to Earth A Sehore farmer finds a unique pigeon pea variety that bears pods three to four times in a row When their two soybean crops failed in two consecutive years, farmer Raj Kumar Rathore tried to convince his parents to experiment with other crops. But it only angered them. They were not ready to give up farming the traditional crop of Madhya Pradesh's Sehore district. He was ousted from the...

-The Hindu     UAS-Dharwad submitted the proposal three years ago DHARWAD: Sugarcane growers in the Sirsi-Yellapur belt are eager to know if the Congress government will approve a scheme that aims to conserve and promote ‘joni bella' - a special variety of jaggery. It has been three years since the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, sent a Rs. 1 crore proposal in this regard, which, if implemented, promises to boost the agrarian economy in...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The Manmohan Singh government's target of skilling 500 million people by 2022 is grossly inflated and is based on a speech by late management guru CK Prahalad instead of any demographic analysis. The country would actually need only about half that number of trained manpower by then, the government's own think-tank, the Institute of Applied Manpower Research (IAMR), has said in a research paper. The IAMR, housed under...