-Firstpost.com Chandigarh: With the planting of the new paddy crop underway in Punjab, Balour Singh of Sangrur district's Channa village is worried about the hourly fee of Rs 150 he needs to pay his neighbour for supplying water to his fields. Being a marginal farmer, Singh doesn't own a borewell and has to depend on others for water, which is something his paddy crop needs in plenty. But water isn't Balour Singh's...

-Business Standard In the case of paddy, the current bout of rain should push transplanting crops from nurseries in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, eastern Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar Mumbai/ New Dehi: The southwest monsoon, after a relatively lull phase, has become active over the past two days in belts of eastern, central, northern and western India where mainly pulses, oilseeds, cotton, and paddy are grown. There are forecasts of heavy to very heavy rain. In...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) images of the past ten days show large parts of India are dotted with fires, stretching across Uttar Pradesh (UP), Madhya Pradesh (MP), Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and even some southern states. In sweltering summer, these fires are intensifying heat and causing black carbon (a component of soot with high global warming effect) pollution. Some of these dots may be forest fires...

-The Indian Express Curbing stubble burning is about inducing behavioural changes in farmers. Given that crop residue burning has an environmental footprint and poses health hazards, one needs to be cautious while evaluating the Centre’s policy to mitigate the crisis. But there is also an urgent need for such an evaluation. The Centre has allocated Rs 1,050 crore to the states where crop residue burning poses a pollution hazard. The Union Ministry...

-The Times of India NAGPUR: Amid paddy growers of east Vidarbha reeling under a major pest attack, some of them who have adopted organic farming claim they could prevent losses in their fields using natural pesticides. They had gathered at a meet organized in the city by Bijotsav — an organization promoting organic agriculture. As each of them spoke about their experiences, the farmers from Gondia and Chandrapur districts claimed to have...