-The Deccan Herald Debal Deb has conserved around 700 species of rice   Government spends millions of dollars on developing one variety of rice where as thousands of traditional varieties are pushed under the carpet, said Agricultural scientist Debal Deb. He was addressing media persons after releasing a documentary Agricultural scientist ‘Pearls of wisdom’, narrating stories of farmers and agricultural scientists involved in conserving native varieties of rice. “There are farmers who have conserved traditional...

Though India has registered a record wheat and rice output, yields of major crops are much lower when compared with the production developed countries. According to the latest report of UN's food and agriculture body FAO, India lags behind badly in world average yield of rice, cotton, pulses while in wheat it is close to the global benchmark.  The FAO report relates to authenticated data up to year 2010. India is...

Travelling in rural India always yields rich insights into how poor women struggle to provide that little extra, in terms of food, for the family meal. It was in the village of Vijaypura – in the drought prone Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh – that I came across Bharati, a 39-year-old farm woman and homemaker, working her everyday magic by laying out slices of potato and whole green chillies on the...

-The Hindustan Times   Rambai, a lean and sprightly 34-year-old, has never been the quiet sort. So when her neighbours at the Rokra hamlet were asked to choose a community health worker (CHW) — called Mitanin (friend) in Chhattisgarh — they knew that Rambai would be an ideal candidate. “We selected her because she could communicate well and interact with officials with ease, even though she has studied till Class 5,” said...

The UPA-II has used the Budget to again play politics with hunger. But it has paid no heed to the ticking time bomb of growing social tensions as 58 million Indians living off agriculture slide deeper into poverty. The Economic Survey says more than half the population is dependent on a sector whose share in the economy is shrinking. The urban-rural income divide is therefore steadily widening, a tinder box that...