-Hindustan Times With progressively increasing severity of rising temperatures and rain deficits over two consecutive years – 2014 and 2015, the Great Indian Drought was always coming. The India Meteorological Department, ministry of home affairs, the ministry of water resources, the Ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare office, and the National Disaster Management Authority knew it. The question is, what did we do with this knowledge? Six hundred million of India’s 1.2 billion...

-Livemint.com The study says that only 7.73 million hectares in India, compared to a potential 69.5 million hectares, were covered under micro-irrigation by March 2015 New delhi: Farming uses over 90% of India’s fresh water, but despite the potential savings micro-irrigation can offer, its penetration is abysmally low, shows a recent study. Just 7.73 million hectares in India, compared to a potential 69.5 million hectares, were covered under micro-irrigation by March 2015, shows...

-The Indian Express Punjab’s farmers are losing interest in planting new trees, with prices halving from their peaks. Jalandhar/ Ludhiana: Sandeep Singh Randhawa grew paddy and wheat on his 65-acre land at Talwandi Lal Singh village in Gurdaspur district’s Batala tehsil. That was till the late eighties, when he first planted poplar on the edges of his field. The returns encouraged him to expand the area under these trees — each...

-The Hindu Business Line New delhi: The All India Bread Manufacturers Association (AIBMA) has said that bread makers will do away with the use of potassium bromate as an additive in bread and bakery products. On Thursday, the AIBMA, which represents the organised bread manufacturers in the market, said that it proposes to stop use of potassium bromate with immediate effect, without waiting for a formal notification from the FSSAI. Industry players...

-Livemint.com The 69th meet of the World Health Assembly began with a call to address unprecedented challenges facing the global health sector Geneva: Despite carrying the highest disease burden in the world, the Narendra Modi government chose to send a small delegation to the World Health Assembly (WHA) that began on Monday, giving the country little say in the way the global health agenda is being set and inadequately reflecting its priorities,...