-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has recently ordered closure of many polluting units in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere, but such a 'drastic' step could soon be the last resort if the government finally legislates a proposed law which imposes heavy fines on violators instead of shutting them down altogether. The proposed law provides for an increase in the existing penalty from Rs 1 lakh to...

-The Hindu Business Line At an organic market in Odisha, middle-class consumers get to interact with the producers of their food and appreciate traditional knowledge systems One Sunday morning in January, I visited an organic produce market located amidst dense bougainvillea creepers and rows of trees, on the grounds of the six-decade-old Christian Hospital in Bissamcuttack, a town in western Odisha’s Rayagada district. In policy and public imagination, Odisha, particularly its western districts...

-The Hindu Fifty years since the Green Revolution, the architect of the reform highlights the crisis facing Indian agriculture today It is 11 years since agronomist M.S. Swaminathan handed over his recommendations for improving the state of agriculture in India to the former United Progressive Alliance government, at the height of the Vidarbha farmer suicides crisis, but they are still to be implemented. To address the agrarian crisis and farmers’ unrest across...

-The Economic Times BHUBANESWAR: The Supreme Court’s landmark order imposing an estimated Rs 25,000 crore penalty on iron ore and manganese miners in Odisha continues to rattle the sector, with serious implications for mining operations across the country and clearances obtained in the past. The 144-page order has given ammunition to green activists to seek court orders against mines in Goa and other states, and strengthened their case in ongoing matters 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...