‘Plan to make Madurai a hub for exporting horticulture produce’
The Hindu
State government keen to develop agriculture sector, says Minister
Madurai would be developed as a hub for exporting horticulture produce from southern districts, said Commercial Taxes and Registration Minister P. Moorthi here on Sunday.
Speaking at ‘mupperum vizha’ organised at Agricultural College and Research Institute, he said that the State government had prepared many plans for the development of agriculture sector. Among them was tabling of an exclusive budget for agriculture.
After almost over a decade, water from Mullaperiyar dam was released on June 1 for irrigation. Farmers should have benefited due to the timely release, which could not be done in the past. Farmers must make the best use of the recent copious rains. Through new techniques and adopting right technology, they could get higher yield and higher productivity from their lands, Mr. Moorthy said.
“Writing, in general, is a very solitary process,” says Yauvanika Chopra, Associate Director at The New India Foundation (NIF), which, earlier this year, announced the 12th edition of its NIF Book Fellowships for research and scholarship about Indian history after Independence. While authors, in general, are built for it, it can still get very lonely, says Chopra, pointing out that the fellowship’s community support is as valuable as the monetary benefits it offers. “There is a solid community of NIF fellows, trustees, language experts, jury members, all of whom are incredibly competent,” she says. “They really help make authors feel supported from manuscript to publication, so you never feel like you’re struggling through isolation.”
Several principals of government and private schools in Delhi on Tuesday said the Directorate of Education (DoE) circular from a day earlier, directing schools to conduct classes in ‘hybrid’ mode, had caused confusion regarding day-to-day operations as they did not know how many students would return to school from Wednesday and how would teachers instruct in two modes — online and in person — at once. The DoE circular on Monday had also stated that the option to “exercise online mode of education, wherever available, shall vest with the students and their guardians”. Several schoolteachers also expressed confusion regarding the DoE order. A government schoolteacher said he was unsure of how to cope with the resumption of physical classes, given that the order directing government offices to ensure that 50% of the employees work from home is still in place. On Monday, the Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) had, on the orders of the Supreme Court, directed schools in Delhi-NCR to shift classes to the hybrid mode, following which the DoE had issued the circular. The court had urged the Centre’s pollution watchdog to consider restarting physical classes due to many students missing out on the mid-day meals and lacking the necessary means to attend classes online. The CAQM had, on November 20, asked schools in Delhi-NCR to shift to the online mode of teaching.