-Mid Day   A visit to the APMC in Vashi revealed that calcium carbide - referred to as ‘carpet' by traders - which is known to cause cancer, food poisoning, nausea etc - is being used indiscriminately to ripen the fruit faster, so as to increase sales Think before you sink your teeth into those juicy, delicious mangoes. For, they could have been ripened artificially using calcium carbide, a deadly chemical that is...

-The Hindu   96 agriculture students are taking part in Polika-2014 in Wayanad district SULTHAN BATHERY (Kerala): They conducted a participatory appraisal after visiting farmers' houses in the Sulthan Bathery grama panchayat and an assessment of the resources of the community. These 96 final-semester B.Sc. Agriculture (Honours) students, including 21 boys and 75 girls, of the College of Agriculture, Vellayani, under the Kerala Agricultural University (KAU), are attending Polika-2014. The 10-day village stay programme...

-DNA   Workshop showcases benefit of SRI technique that requires less water and input, but provides better yield Ahmedabad: Paddy cultivators in Navsari and Dangs reap fortune in their fields with the new system of rice intensification (SRI), a methodology of crop cultivation has yielded rich dividends. Experts who spoke about the unique technique compared it with other techniques that require a initial high input cost, and said this method of cultivation on...

-The Indian Express   Available data suggests the programme has been effective in reducing rural poverty and gender discrimination Nirmala Sitharaman's misinformation (‘How not to run a programme', IE, May 9) on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which employs one in every four Indian rural households every year, is disappointing. Consider these facts. For the first time in over two decades, the increase in rural consumption (a proxy indicator...

-The Hindu   Karimnagar (Andhra Pradesh): With the bumper paddy crop and prevailing unseasonal conditions of sudden rains and hailstorms in the district, farmers are being forced to resort to distressed harvesting of their crop with the harvesters by shelling out huge amount. Taking advantage of the situation, the harvesters are charging heavily and making a fast buck in Karimnagar district, where the paddy crop is expected to be around 13.5 lakh metric...