-The Indian Express These protests, preceded by sit-ins across Punjab, are expected to gather steam after September 14, when Parliament convenes for the Monsoon Session. Jalandhar, New Delhi and Pune: On Thursday, farmer organisations in Haryana defied prohibitory orders imposed amid the pandemic to hold a rally at the Pipli wholesale grain market near Kurukshetra. They even blocked the Delhi-Chandigarh national highway for a couple of hours, when the police initially did...

-The Hindu The crisis in agriculture demands that the government announce a strong fiscal stimulus for the rural economy A rather confident statement heard in the midst of India’s COVID-19-induced economic slowdown is this: “Agriculture will lead India’s economic revival”. But how valid is this claim put forward by government spokespersons and some observers? Four major arguments are offered. First, India’s food grain production in 2019-20 was 3.7% higher than in 2018-19. The...

-Down to Earth Freshwater wildlife down 84%; Latin America, the Caribbean particularly hit The population of vertebrate species declined by around 68 per cent between 1970 and 2016, said the Living Planet Report 2020 released by international non-profit World Wide Fund for Nature September 10, 2020. The Living Planet Index (LPI) — a measure of the state of the world’s biological diversity based on population trends of vertebrate species in terrestrial, freshwater and...

-The Hindu Despite finding huge favour in India, the GM crop has only brought modest benefits Cotton has been woven and used in India for thousands of years. Cotton fabric from around 3,000 BCE has been excavated from the ruins of Mohenjo-daro, and archaeological findings in Mehrgarh, Pakistan, show that cotton was used in the subcontinent as far back as 5,000 BCE. Indian cotton fabrics dominated the world Trade during the succeeding...

-Livemint.com Trade moving outside regulated markets could lead to speculation and volatile prices, warn experts NEW DELHI: After the Centre enacted a new set of laws freeing internal Trade in farm produce, crop arrivals in regulated wholesale markets have witnessed a sharp decline. However, off-market transactions between farmers and Traders which are going unrecorded could be fueling food inflation as Traders engage in speculation and hoarding, experts said. An analysis of numbers from...