Amidst the prevailing gloominess over agrarian crisis, a recently released report says that the growth rate of agricultural output in both India and China were the same during 2008-2013. The agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) of both these countries on an average grew at 3.3 percent per annum during that period. The latest available data from the 2016 Global Food Policy Report, however, indicates that the neighbouring countries of Sri Lanka...

-Down to Earth Participants voice concern on drought, farmers' suicide and water conservation, among other issues The three-day long Kisan Swaraj Sammelan held in Hyderabad (April 1 to 3) urged for the enactment of a Farmers’ Income Guarantee Act to ensure dignified earning levels for agricultural households among a host of other things. Organised by the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, a group comprising 400 diverse organisations from across India, the...

-The Telegraph Bangalore: A mobile app that enables donors to save blood for future use by maintaining accounts was launched today by an ad agency that has joined hands with the Indian Red Cross Society's Karnataka branch. Possibly the world's first such project, an app called Blood Banking on iOS and Android platforms was launched with an eye on the younger generation that is more attuned to smart technologies for anything from...

-The Indian Express The percentage of the adult population for four large developing countries — China, India, Indonesia and Nigeria — who are living in cities, as well as the change in this percentage between 1975 and 2000, are plotted in chart. Rural-urban migration is exceptionally low in India. Changes in the rural and urban population between decennial censuses over the period 1961-2001 indicate that the migration rate for working age...

-The Indian Express India does need these toilets badly. Over half a billion people practice open defecation, the highest number in the world. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) has a target of 12 crore toilets by October 2019. That makes for 2,739 toilets a day, almost two toilets every second! Work on the toilets is on track. In fact, reports show that the targets are being surpassed. In 2014-15, the very first...