-The Hindu Pune: In 2000, he led a campaign demanding entry for women into the Shani Shingnapur temple. The trail-blazing activism by rationalist firebrand Narendra Dabholkar, who was killed by right-wing elements, and his Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (MANS) to combat the ban on women entering temples was a vital phase in the organisation’s untiring efforts to strive for gender equality in Maharashtra. While the struggle commenced with the usual raucous noises...

-Business Standard Most homes not getting enough to eat; resorting to sending children for work, distress sale of any cattle; call for comprehensive relief without delay A little more than a third of the 100-odd drought-hit villages in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh have recorded at least one death due to hunger or malnutrition in the past eight months. And, about two-thirds of households often did not get two square meals in...

-Hindustan Times Ranchi: Jaidev Mahto, 65, mortgaged 2.5 acres of land to repay a bank loan of Rs 25,000. A resident of Bardaha village in Dhanbad district, Mahato had taken the loan against his Kisan Credit Card (KCC) for Kharif crops that were damaged completely due to scarcity of rainfall this year. Hemant Singh, 50, a Farmer of Pyraguri village in East Singhbhum district, took a KCC loan of Rs 28,000 for...

Agricultural insurance is supposed to protect Farmers from financial hardships and risks when crop losses and damage takes place due to extreme weather events such as drought, cyclone, hailstorms, flood etc. However, in reality this does not hold true in India. Due to the failure of crop insurance schemes in India, there has been a deepening of agrarian crisis and rural distress in the recent times, particularly in the backdrop of...

-The Hindu Genes tolerant to salinity and iron toxicity were put into another variety Scientists at the Rice Research Station of Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) at Vyttila have developed a new variety of paddy tolerant to saline intrusion, a major challenge faced by Farmers in the lowlands. The landmark achievement in rice research was made possible by the introduction of genes tolerant to salinity and iron toxicity into Jyothi, Kerala’s most popular rice...