-Down to Earth A few villages in Haryana successfully grow cotton amid widespread destruction of the crop by whitefly in the region LOOK HERE, the red pest you see is Chrysopa,” says an excited Manisha, while navigating through her cotton field in Haryana’s Nidana village. “A single Chrysopa, a carnivorous pest, eats around 125-150 whiteflies a day,” says the 24-year-old. Further ahead in her 0.8-hectare cotton plantation, she picks another plant leaf...

-Financial Express The country must double its support to farmers, from the current levels of about 6-8% of the value of agri-output It was in the mid-1980s that the ‘India-Bharat’ phraseology was fist pushed into political jargon, by farmers’ leader Sharad Joshi, with ‘India’ representing the urban elite of the country and ‘Bharat’ synonymous with its neglected rural folk. Joshi, at the time, was leading lakhs of farmers protesting against anti-farmer policies,...

-Livemint.com State seeks Rs300 crore more for drinking water supply and Rs750 crore for waiving off interest payments on loans New Delhi: Madhya Pradesh has declared 35 out of 51 districts in the state as drought affected and sought an initial central assistance of Rs.2,400 crore, indicating deepening rural distress. Karnataka, Maharashtra and Odisha have already declared parts of their state as drought affected. Madhya Pradesh finance minister Jayant Malaiya and agriculture minister...

-The Indian Express Why early life investment matters, and what we should do about it. With the success in reducing child mortality, the challenge before India is to safeguard early-life conditions in order to prevent long-run loss in welfare for individuals and the economy. Malnutrition rates for India are extremely high, with about 38.4 per cent of children being stunted and 46 per cent underweight (National Family Health Survey, 2005-06). There...

-DNA Wondering about the plight of the rural population facing successive droughts which has to buy pulses, South Asia Network for Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) laments how no benefit of the price hike is reaching actual pulse farmers. While most link the current tur (pigeon pea) dal crisis with raging market prices, storage issues, hoarding and economics, a new study highlighting the making of the crisis - by South Asia Network...