-Mongabay.com * Contamination of groundwater with chemicals like arsenic and fluoride is an important issue in several states of India. Even though government has schemes to address the problem not much has Been achieved. * Authorities have Been repeatedly told that efforts on war-footing are needed to protect millions of Indians from the contaminated groundwater but the work is yet to acquire the pace needed. * The parliamentary standing committee on rural development...

-The Indian Express The unprecedented procurement of pulses and oilseeds in the last couple of years has created problems — and opportunities. If there’s one area in agriculture where the Narendra Modi government has probably broken fresh ground, it is in the procurement of pulses and oilseeds.   During the 2016-17 and 2017-18 agricultural years (July-June), the Central agencies — National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (Nafed), Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC)...

-TheWire.in In an interview with The Wire, former secretary to the government of India P.S. Krishnan says economically weaker sections require financial aid, not reservation. P.S. Krishnan, the former secretary to government of India, was one of the crucial people behind the enactment of several historic laws regarding social justice. The current Bill proposed by the government to provide reservation to economically weaker upper castes in jobs and education, he says, violates...

-TheNewsMinute.com Shilpa Prabhakar Satish, who became the district’s first woman collector when she took charge in May 2018, says her daughter enjoys going to the anganwadi daily. At a time when parents across the state are in deep discussions over which play school to admit their wards in the coming summer, Tirunelveli’s first woman collector, Shilpa Prabhakar Satish, has chosen a government run anganwadi for her daughter. And the 2009 batch...

  In its 2014 election manifesto, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), among other things, promised to "take steps to enhance the profitability in agriculture, by ensuring a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production". In his 2018-19 Union budget speech too, the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley informed the Parliament that the 2014 election manifesto of the BJP had stated that the farmers should get at least 1.5 times the...