Bring farmers to farms

The new era of price rise can be turned into a profitable proposition for the farmer

Rice intensification for increasing productivity

Jai Sri is a common greeting in the Koraput countryside these days. A Paraja tribal woman working in her fields, a passing motorcyclist driving through the rutted lanes, a teacher heading for his school, they all greet each other and visitors with a Jai Sri. It has nothing to do with religious revivalism, but is the new buzzword sweeping the farmlands of Odisha—and large patches of India. SRI is the acronym for System of Rice Intensification, a new technique to grow rice more efficiently using much less water and seeds but yielding far greater quantities of rice.

Letters

PDS for family planning

Letters

Zero-calorie sweetener needs stirring  

From roaming to home delivery

The public distribution system is throwing up innovations, with officialdom seeking new ways of cracking the problem. However, some have remained non-starters despite their usefulness.

Pushing the food coupon

The Centre is pushing the concept of food coupons as a way of ending the inefficient public distribution system. First proposed in the Economic survey in February, the proposal has now been fleshed out by Kaushik Basu, chief economic adviser to the Ministry of Finance.

It’s my land, not yours

Land for industries is acquired either through the government or through private negotiations with land owners. The government categorises agricultural land as single crop, double crop or barren. Compensation is determined depending on the category.

88,000 fake ration cards

THE Orissa government has cancelled over 88,000 bogus ration cards detected during a two-and-a-half-month drive by the state’s food supplies department.

Food security act to make people weaker

What is the agenda of the newly constituted Council?

PM qualifies Bt brinjal moratorium

Prime minister Manmohan Singh has supported the moratorium on Bt brinjal by the Union minister of state for environment, Jairam Ramesh. Singh qualified his support by saying the period of the moratorium will be decided by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC);  the committee would also resolve the conflict among scientists on allowing commercial production of the genetically modified (GM) crop.