-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The new draft protocol for clinical trials of drugs, on the lines suggested by the Supreme Court, is making it difficult for global drug manufacturers to find subjects for testing new chemical compositions. The protocol has made it mandatory for companies intending to conduct human trials of drugs to video-record the free consent of patients to be part of the trial. It also mandates them to...

-Down to Earth Faced with crop losses because of erratic rainfall and extreme weather, tribal farmers of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh turn to bewar and penda forms of cultivation that keeps them nourished all times of the year, but government agencies are bent on rooting out these farm practices Hariaro Bai Deoria should have been a worried person this year-an untimely spell of rain late last October flattened her paddy crop, and...

-The Hindu COIMBATORE (Tamil Nadu): As it does every year, this time too the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University gave away awards to five select farmers from different parts of the State in recognition of their Innovation and progressive methods followed in agriculture. Instituted by the university, the Velanmai Chemmal Awards are sponsored by C.R.I. Pumps. This year's achievers included G. Mayilsamy from Sulur Kaliapuram, Coimbatore, for his contribution to seed and bio-fertilizer...

-The Week A revolutionary farming system is working wonders in Nalanda district Nalanda: If not for an agricultural technique known as SRI (system of rice intensification), Sumant Kumar of Darveshpura in Bihar's Nalanda district would have remained a faceless farmer. In 2012, with the help of the state agriculture department, he tried out SRI on an acre that usually bore only modest yields. It worked, and Sumant got a bumper harvest. An...

-The Times of India Gujarat's much-touted Chiranjeevi Yojana, launched in 2006 to reduce maternal and infant mortality rates in BPL households, has not had any significant impact, says a new study by Duke University. The programme, which subsidizes the cost of delivery at designated private sector hospitals, has not led to increased probability of institutional child-delivery. Also, analyses of household expenditure of women who used the subsidized delivery scheme in private hospitals...