Topic: Agriculture
Labour shortage amid coronavirus may hamper agricultural production & hit supply chain
As people flock home during the 21-day Covid-19 lockdown, dearth of labourers at cold storages & godowns in West Bengal signal a potential crisis in supply chain.
Heavy damage to rabi crops after unseasonal March rainfall, hailstorm in North India
India registered an over 80 per cent increase in rainfall in the first two weeks of March, with Punjab, Haryana, UP and Rajasthan bearing the maximum damage.
Indian policymakers get it wrong because farmers’ lack of market access is not the problem
Farmers are the only producers who don't get to declare the price of their produce in market. And this is highly unfavourable.
Agriculture minister blames Mamata for 10 lakh Bengal farmers not getting PM-KISAN benefits
Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said he has written twice to Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee to push for implementation of PM-KISAN, but hasn’t received a reply yet.
No one wants imported onions. So, Modi govt plans distress sale to states at Rs 10/kg
Govt spent Rs 226 crore to import the onions, but has only sold worth Rs 17-19 crore to the states.
Now, Bangladesh set to steal march over India with GM rice that fights malnutrition
A GM rice variety called golden rice has been deemed safe in fresh tests conducted by researchers from the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute.
India can’t have true reform in agriculture if we keep hitching it to rural development
The systematic marginalisation of agriculture in Indian economy, including by Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget, reveals why we can never fix it.
Cherry tomatoes are 80,000 yrs old. No humans were domesticating plants that long ago
For many years, scientists believed that humans domesticated the tomato in two major phases. But maybe the tomato as we know it started as a wild species.
Budget 2020 pays little more than lip service to farmers and agri sector. Just like last year
Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget has missed the opportunity to give farm sector the much-required thrust. And by reducing food & fertiliser subsidy, it has made matters worse.
Onion prices likely to fall this year as govt forecasts 7% rise in production
Onion prices had skyrocketed to Rs 100 per kg in several parts of the country last November due to a 30-40 per cent dip in its production.
Tablighi Jamaat brought out Republic, Zee and Times Now’s fangs that Covid-19 had withdrawn
The unity of TV channels against coronavirus was too good to be true. The Tablighi Jamaat gave most of them the chance to show their true colours.
Is there a risk of Modi govt using Covid-19 to curb media and freedoms or is it necessary?
Surveillance is becoming a key concern during the Covid-19 crisis. The Supreme Court has also directed media to publish the official version of the developments.
Defence
Coronavirus doesn’t stop Indian Army from carrying out its annual cyber security exercise
Army had earlier issued advisory claiming India's adversaries were launching coronavirus-themed campaigns to infect official or personal IT assets of defence personnel.
Modi’s India isn’t Mao’s China. Silly forecasts assume we’ll let corona kill millions of us
There are many scary scenarios about how badly we Indians may be affected or how many killed by Covid-19. But they presume we will do nothing to influence our fates.