-The Hindu Business Line Kochi: A training-cum-awareness workshop on Consortium of e-Resources in Agriculture (CeRA) called for promoting ICT-driven technology and information dissemination systems to improve agricultural research in the country. Keeping pace with the current knowledge diffusion trends, the new-generation researchers should come forward to utilise the digital knowledge resources maintained by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the workshop proposed. The workshop was held at the Central Marine Fisheries Research...

-Hindustan Times The audit also recommended abolishing admission quotas, including those under the discretion of the vice-chancellor; no official reason was given for the audit. New Delhi: The Aligarh Muslim University must abolish separate colleges for male and female undergraduate students, do away with discretionary admission quotas and merge the departments for Sunni and Shia studies, a government-backed audit of the institution has suggested. These are among the top recommendations the audit made...

-The Hindu Business Line The recent deaths in Maharashtra once again affirm that highly toxic agrochemicals are freely sold across the counter Last month about 40 farmers died and more than 700 were hospitalised in Maharashtra due pesticide poisoning. Initial reports suggest that the deaths are due to monochrotophos. This is a highly toxic chemical that has been banned in more than 60 countries but is still allowed to be sold in...

-The Indian Express Agriculture education is in a poor state. ICAR must be revamped Although autarky on Indian farms is a distant dream, as the 71st year of Independence dawns, penury-ridden farmers are still committing suicide by the thousands— a consequence of decades of short-sightedness, while economists and scientists are still equating food sufficiency to farmer sustainability. The occasion merits introspection on the core issues of farmers’ distress. We must begin at the...

-The Hindu The political scientist on the danger to India’s checks and balances, and the perils of the democratisation of mediocrity in universities Professor of political science and a holder of the Madan Lal Sobti Chair, Devesh Kapur has been director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary India at University of Pennsylvania since 2006. Mr. Kapur, who recently co-edited Public Institutions in India: Performance and Design, says our public universities...