-The Indian Express A cabinet meeting chaired by CM Chouhan endorsed an ordinance to control non-biodegradable waste to enable the ban on polythene carry bags. Bhopal: More than three years after the National Green Tribunal recommended a ban on polythene to protect the environment, the Madhya Pradesh government on Tuesday announced a complete ban on polythene carry bags from May 1. The BJP government, however, cited cow deaths as one of the...

-Down to Earth Ammonia concentration in the atmosphere over India is the highest in the world due to cattle population and excessive fertilizer use, says study A satellite study of airborne ammonia gas has revealed four major hotspots over productive agricultural regions across the world. Increased atmospheric ammonia is linked to poor air and water quality. Using data from NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder satellite instrument, researchers led by the University of Maryland...

-The Hindu Business Line Combatore: V Pandian, a vegetable grower at Ketti Pallada in the Nilgiris, recalled the wild buffalo intrusion on his farmland around mid-March. “A herd of 30 or so wild buffaloes trampled on the half-acre plot in which carrot shoots had started to show up, destroying the crop completely. I just gave up,” he said. The sleepy hamlet, located 15 km from Coonoor, has become the haunting ground for...

-AlJazeera.com How rising debts, pesticides and erratic rainfall are pushing some farmers in southern India to suicide. Karnataka: Farmers have worked the land of southern India for more than 10,000 years, making use of its fertile soil and abundant rains. Mahatma Gandhi PLAced Indian farmers at the centre of his vision for independence. In his 1909 book about Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule), he argued that farmers had "managed with the same kind...

-Deccan Herald The last fig leaf of ‘voluntariness’ in Aadhaar dropped when the Lok Sabha passed the Finance Bill 2017 on March 22. The Finance Bill should never have been able to change Aadhaar, but we must remember that it was the same “money bill route” that gave birth to the Aadhaar Act a year ago. Classifying Aadhaar as a money bill was a brazen, unconstitutional and undemocratic strategy used to take...