-The Tribune The outlook for all things smart is opening up, including Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA). Varanasi, set to develop as a Smart City, will be a lighthouse for sectors seeking sustainable ways to handle demographic pressures, finite environmental resources and climate change. The Finance Minister's budget speech has promised a hundred smart cities. With urban India well covered, it is the turn now of smart agriculture, equipped both to enhance food...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Mangal Singh's three sons were forced to work as daily wage labourers in Gujarat, hundreds of kilometres from their village in Rajasthan's Ajmer district, before the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was introduced. They were employed there for perilous digging of wells and stayed away from their home for months leaving their 82-year-old father to fend for himself. The NREGA came as a big boon for...

-The Financial Express The government has identified 46 million hectare of agricultural land spread across 122 districts that is likely to be adversely impacted by extreme weather events and cause decline in farm output, agriculture minster Radha Mohan Singh on Tuesday said. "Uncertain and erratic rainfall, delay in onset of monsoon, agricultural droughts, excess rainfall events and other extreme weather events during crop growing seasons may affect agricultural productivity and profitability of...

-Livemint.com The experts are said to be likely to be in India starting 9 December, inspecting units and laboratories mostly in Gujarat and Maharashtra New Delhi: After indicating to revoke the import ban on mangoes and four other farm produce from India, a team of European experts will visit the country next week to inspect pesticide levels in sesame seeds used in confectionery. The experts are likely to visit India starting 9...

-The Hindu Thanks to application of bio-fertilizers, green manure Cumbum (Tamil Nadu): A paddy farmer in Cumbum Pudhupatti village has got a bumper yield this year, setting a new record in yield per hectare, thanks to the application of bio-fertilizers, green manure, proper split application of chemical fertilizers and adoption of modern agriculture practices. He has harvested 15.8 tonnes per hectare against the district average of 10 tonnes this season. It was the...