-Hindustan Times In August this year, whiteflies -- a notorious pest -- bumbled through vast tracts of Punjab’s cotton fields, destroying a sizeable chunk of the crop in the state. These insects, which slurp on juicy, tender bolls, seemed to have inflicted heavy losses, sparking a serious farm crisis in India’s agricultural powerhouse in a decade. A back-to-back drought meant farmers grew more cotton, a hardy crop that requires less water to...
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Access at the cost of Net neutrality? -Suhrith Parthasarathy
-The Hindu In the Net neutrality debate, there is a conflict between two core values: ease of access and neutrality. The ease of access promised by applications like Free Basics compromises neutrality and may later morph into a method of predatory pricingIf programs that bring access to a part of the Internet in the immediate future were to entrench themselves, it could eventually lead to telecom companies abusing their dominant positionsIn...
More »Why poverty in rural India is still a concern -Ruhi Tewari
-The Indian Express The recently-released India Rural Development Report, which is endorsed by the government, says 7% of the rural population is ‘very poor’; villages in eastern Indian states are the worst affected. A World Bank report released this week has proposed a new way to measure poverty, which suggests that India may have been overestimating the number of its poor. According to a separate set of figures and analysis endorsed by...
More »India faces shortage of pulses; to import from Myanmar, Australia and Tanzania -Sudhir Suryawanshi
-DNA Country to import 50 lakh MT pulses from Myanmar, Australia, Tanzania India's 'low pulse' is going to pump up the economies of three countries – Myanmar, Australia and Tanzania. India needs to urgently import 50 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of pulses worth over Rs 2,600 crore to meet the domestic demand of 2.10 lakh MT. "There is no supply. Farmers had stopped cultivating pulses for want of incentives. Besides, to cultivate pulses,...
More »Unearthing the loopholes in Modi government's Soil Health Card scheme -Jyotika Sood
-DNA The Modi government’s soil-testing scheme doesn’t address the causes of agrarian distress In February this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched an ambitious Rs568 crore Soil Health Card (SHC) scheme. The objective of the three-year scheme is to issue soil health cards to 14 crore farmers spread across India. The cards will be given out after determining the quality of soil, identifying its macro- and micronutrients as well as its...
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