-Scroll.in The proposed law is almost identical to the United Progressive Alliance’s 2008 Pesticide Management Bill. Months after more than 40 people in three states were reported to have died in the second half of 2017 after being exposed to spurious pesticides, the Bharatiya Janata Party government has begun consultations on a new Pesticides Management Bill. The deaths in rural Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Telangana highlighted the fact that the Insecticides Act...

-Livemint.com Centre is soon going to issue a revised set of guidelines to address current challenges faced by the crop insurance scheme, says Ashish Bhutani, joint secretary at the agriculture ministry New Delhi: The prime minister’s flagship crop insurance scheme, which has seen an impressive rise in coverage and sum assured since its launch in 2016, is facing a number of challenges that are delaying claim settlements for farmers, a senior agriculture...

-The Indian Express The government should not succumb to pressures for removal of trait fee on a technology that has made India the world’s No. 1 cotton producer. During the last cotton season, there were reports of the pink bollworm (PBW) not being effectively controlled, especially in some 700 villages of Maharashtra where the infestation of this insect pest was stated to be high. However, at a review meeting conducted by the...

-PTI The Punjab government had earlier faced the wrath of the tribunal for not taking effective steps to provide financial assistance and infrastructure facility to the farmers to encourage them not to burn agricultural residue. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Tuesday directed Delhi and four northern states to formulate a comprehensive policy for providing incentives and infrastructural assistance to farmers to stop them from burning crop residue to prevent air pollution. The...

-Down to Earth The protests are in opposition to the vague position of the Rules on forest-dwelling communities in the compensatory afforestation process The draft Compensatory Afforestation Fund Rules, 2018, notified by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) on February 16, have sparked protests by tribal organisations in Odisha. The protests are due to the fact that the Rules are vague on the role of communities in...