-Reuters India's villages face a sharp spike in food prices in 2016, as a second year of drought drives up the cost of ingredients such as sugar and milk, and poor transport infrastructure stops falling global prices from reaching rural areas.  India's FIRst back-to-back drought in three decades also complicates government spending calculations as Prime Minister Narendra Modi tries to prune a subsidy regime that has long propped up the rural economy,...

-Financial Express The country must double its support to farmers, from the current levels of about 6-8% of the value of agri-output It was in the mid-1980s that the ‘India-Bharat’ phraseology was fist pushed into political jargon, by farmers’ leader Sharad Joshi, with ‘India’ representing the urban elite of the country and ‘Bharat’ synonymous with its neglected rural folk. Joshi, at the time, was leading lakhs of farmers protesting against anti-farmer policies,...

-Hindustan Times Faridkot/Bathinda: Jagroop Singh owns seven acres of agricultural land in a village of Faridkot district. All of it was under the long-duration paddy (PUSA 44) harvested on October 17. He then had barely 10 days to prepare his field for wheat sowing. The seasoned cultivator did not think twice before putting a matchstick to his paddy crop residue littered all over his field. The stubble went up in flames within...

-The Independent The world is halfway towards the threshold that could result in dangerous climate change, scientists have warned, after revealing that average global temperatures have recorded a rise of one degree Celsius for the FIRst time. Record warm temperatures measured in the FIRst nine months of this year mean that the world has already reached the halfway point towards the arbitrary "threshold" of a 2C increase on pre-industrial levels judged to...

-PTI 'Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis' (PrEP), regular medicine would be given to HIV-negative sex workers who engage sexually with HIV-positive persons. Kolkata: One of Asia’s largest red light districts, Sonagachi will roll out an experimental project for providing HIV-preventive medicine to sex workers from next month. It will be the FIRst such initiative in the country. The feasibility project recently received clearance from the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and Union Health Ministry and is...