IS COW ONE STOP SOLUTION FOR INDIAN AGRICULTURE? The hungama created a year back about ban on cattle sales, cattle movement and atrocities and killing of minorities and dalits indulge in cattle movement is still fresh in memory. Now another jumla like cow centric agriculture is solution for doubling farmers income by 2022 is in offing and it is likely to be announced as national program on August 15th. Natural farming may be one method, but how can GOI promote it in large scale without scientific validation? My request to Agri scientists is not to fall flat to bureaucracy and political nexus and do injustice to Indian agriculture. Please resist the move and counter it with data base. Where NF is good please do encourage it. But do not accept cow as only one medicine for all evils. Justify the actions with documentstion and scientific validation. For example the good yield means the crop absorbed good amount of organic carbons from soils and they need to be compensated. Whether...

VEDANTA GROUP- PUBLIC MUST KNOW THE FACTS Vedanta group took over 65% stakes in Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL) from GOI during the year 2000 as part of PSU disinvestment plan. The plant is having 365 acre prime real estate land base in close proximity to Vishakhapatnam city.   In fact the land was acquired from poor farmers with promise of jobs and industrial development. They ran the unit for about 10 years and in 2012 closed the unit citing the reasons of pollution and raw material availability.   In fact there are no serious complaints about pollution from public and as the raw material is from their own mines it is not an issue at all and its clearly evident that VEDANTA GROUP want to close down the unit with some lame excuses and exploit the commercial value of the land.   In fact there are HPCL, Coromandel Fertilizers functioning next to HZL and there are no problems with pollution.   How GOI did allow VEDANTA GROUP to stop production at HZL? What is the h...

MAIZE FARMERS ARE TAKEN FOR RIDE AGAIN ?? During 2015-16 season maize farm gate prices increased from Rs 1400 to 1800. Immediately poultry lobby came into picture and got an order issued from commerce minister to import 5 Lakh MT of maize. As the nonGM maize was not commercially viable to import hardly any quantity was imported and also there was no need of imports as sufficient quantities are available locally. In fact the lobby misguided GOI with less production figures. This order was purely used to create negative impact on market to reduce maize market rates and the lobby was successful. This season maize rates started around Rs 1500 and came down to Rs 1200 now. Its unfortunate there is no lobby to protect farmers interest, not even media support to highlight such issues. In fact egg prices almost doubled during this period and poultry industry can affer better rates to maize. GOI and even state governments are not serious about supporting the farmers even with MSP. Ho...