New Delhi, Nov 20 () The government should purchase crop residue as it procures wheat and paddy at minimum support price (MSP) to address the issue of stubble burning, one of the causes of air pollution, JD(U) MP Ram Nath Thakur suggested in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. 
Raising the issue during the morning session, Thakur also expressed concern over the arrest of farmers in some states for stubble burning. 
The government should buy crop residue in the same way it purchases wheat and rice from farmers at MSP, he said, adding that this will not only help in reducing pollution, but also provide financial relief to farmers.
BJP member Vijay Pal Singh Tomar suggested that stubble can be used in manufacturing of ethanol. 
He also said efforts should be made to ensure 10 to 15 per cent blending of ethanol with petrol, which will help in environment protection and saving foreign exchange. 
The government has mandated mixing of 10 per cent ethanol in petrol, but only about six per cent is being mixed currently. 
Meanwhile, three Congress MPs demanded that the central government buy rice from Chhattisgarh. 
Chhaya Verma, Motilal Vohra and P L Punia mentioned in the House that rice from the state is not being purchased for the central pool as Chhattisgarh is buying at a higher MSP of Rs 2,500 per quintal against the MSP of Rs 1,815 per quintal announced by the Union government. 
The Centre should relax norms and buy the grains at the MSP announced by the state government as part of its goal to double farmers' income, they said. 
The Congress, which is in power in Chhattisgarh, had promised the higher MSP to boost farmers' income, according to them. 
BJP's Shwait Malik said people living within the 5-km area from the India-Pakistan border in Punjab are facing problems in getting employment and education. 
He demanded a special fund to provide infrastructure, education and job opportunities to them. 
In his Zero Hour mention, A K Selvaraj of the AIADMK raised the issue of adulteration and contamination of food products. 
Two TMC members Md Nadimul Haque and Manas Ranjan Bhunia highlighted the plight of people affected by Cyclone Bulbul and demanded that the central government extend help in providing relief to those affected. 
DMK leader Tiruchi Siva suggested that Tamil should be made the official language of the Madras High Court. 
Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu agreed with the suggestion, saying the language in high courts should be that of the state. 
Another Congress member Mohd Ali Khan asked the central government to intervene so that the ongoing strike by employees of the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) can be ended. In his mention in the House, Prasanna Acharya of the BJP expressed concern on incidents of acid attack on women. He termed such incidents as the most "heinous gender violence". MJH NKD NKD MJH ANB
ANB

Govt should buy crop residue like it purchases wheat, paddy: JD(U) MP

(Eds: combines related series)New Delhi, Apr 19 () E-commerce companies have been prohibited from selling non-essential items during the lockdown, as conditional relaxations in select sectors outside the coronavirus hotspot areas to kickstart the battered economy come into effect from Monday. With states gearing up to revive limited business activity after the Centre announced easing some of the curbs on April 15, Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Sunday said more relief measures are bound to come if the country continues to manage the coronavirus crisis well, asserting, "you cannot (have) lockdown permanently". "He(Modi) gave the call of lockdown at the right time and is now partially allowing economic activity while the lockdown continues. With such a (huge) population we have managed well, if this continues we will get more relief," Javadekar told in an interview. While the relaxations starting from April 20 are primarily aimed at boosting the rural economy, Javadekar, who is a member of the Group of Ministers(GoM) to oversee measures to combat COVID-19, expressed confidence that economic activities will resume in cities as well "sooner than later". Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said some industrial activity in the green and orange COVID-19 zones in the state will be resumed in a restricted manner. "We have to turn this 'arthachakra' (stuck wheel of the chariot of economy) from April 20." But Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said his government has decided not to relax lockdown restrictions which is in force till May 3 as of now since coronavirus appears to be spreading at a "faster pace" in the national capital. The government will assess the situation again after one week, he said. Kejriwal said Delhi has reported 1,893 COVID-19 cases and 43 deaths. Four days after e-commerce companies were allowed to sell products like mobile phones, refrigerators and ready-made garments, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla issued an order excluding non-essential items from their business. The April 15 order had said e-commerce platforms were allowed to sell such items from April 20. Ministry of Home Affairs(MHA) officials had said Televison sets and laptops could also be sold online after which a few e-commerce companies had starting accepting orders. Asked to comment during a media briefing on the U-turn, Punya Salila Srivastava, a Joint Secretary in the MHA, said the COVID-19 situation was "extremely dynamic" and the decision to allow non-essential goods through e-commerce was withdrawn after it was felt the list of permitted items through the online platform was extensive and that it may impact the lockdown. Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla also wrote a letter to the chief secretaries of all States and Union Territories giving a clarification. "...I would like to clarify that while operations of e-commerce companies for non-essential goods stands prohibited, however they will continue to operate for essential goods as has been allowed earlier and continue to be allowed," he said. Bhalla also said labourers, who are stranded in different parts of the country due to the lockdown, will be allowed to go to their respective places of work within a state with certain conditions. He, however, made it clear there will be no inter-state movement of workers during the lockdown. Since additional activities, outside the containment zones, have been permitted in the 'consolidated revised guidelines' with effect from April 20, these workers could be engaged in industrial, manufacturing, construction, farming and MNREGA works, he said. Agriculture, construction, Information Technology(IT), industrial units in the SEZs and rural areas and e-commerce operations were among the select sectors where the coronavirus-induced lockdown restrictions are to be lifted from April 20 in a bid to also reduce the distress caused to millions of people. The announcement to ease the curbs to allow some "select necessary activities" in areas which are not COVID-19 hotspots was made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 14 while declaring the extension of the three-week nationwide lockdown for another 19 days till May 3 to battle the pandemic. The next day, the MHA unveiled the guidelines with some conditions. The relaxations lay strict emphasis on social distancing with a warning by the Centre it will be withdrawn if there is any violation of lockdown norms. Wearing of masks is also being mandatory besides making spitting a punishable offence with a fine of at least Rs.1,000. The permitted activities from April 20 are aimed at ensuring agricultural and related activities remain fully functional, rural economy functions with maximum efficiency, employment opportunities are created for daily wage earners and other members of labour force, select industrial activities are allowed to resume their operations, with safeguards and mandatory standard operating protocols and digital economy, the MHA said. Services provided by self-employed electrician, Information Technology(IT) repairs, plumbers, motor mechanics, carpenters will be allowed giving relief to people looking for such facilities. Highway 'dhaba' (eateries), truck repairing shops and call centres for government activities will remain open from April 20. In a video message, Chief Minister Thackeray said industries in green and orange COVID-19 zones will get permission to resume operations with some restrictions. Industries ready to provide accommodation to their workers during the lockdown will be given food grain supply and permission for raw material from the state, he said. The green zones are those which have not reported any coronavirus case, while orange zones are the ones where only a few cases have been reported. The chief minister said that except for movement of essential services, all the district borders would remained sealed. Thackeray also said his government will take care of all migrant labourers in the state. "I urge them to stay here till the lockdown is in force. I will take care of their food. Once the lockdown is over, I will ensure they reach their homes safely." The Tamil Nadu government is expected to take a decision on easing curbs on specified industries in the state after perusing a report of an expert committee. The committee, which held a meeting, will submit on Monday its report to Chief Minister K Palaniswami who will take a decision on relaxing the curbs after scrutinising the recommendations, an official release said. "The curbs in force will continue to be on till such time the government issues orders," it said. In Punjab, sand and gravel mining and stone crushing have been permitted as part of the construction-related activities from Monday, according to the state home department. The Centre has also allowed movement of all trucks and other goods vehicles with two drivers and one helper, subject to the driver carrying a valid driving licence. An empty truck or vehicle will be allowed to ply after the delivery of goods, or for picking up goods. 'Dhabas'(highway eateries) have been allowed to remain open but they will serve only packed food, according to the guidelines. Both government and private industries and industrial establishments "operating in rural areas, i.e. outside the limits of municipal corporations and municipalities" will be allowed to operate,it said. Manufacturing, industrial units with access control in Special Economic Zones(SEZs), export oriented units, industrial estates, industrial townships will also be allowed. Activities permitted include those related to agricultural and the horticultural sectors, farmers and farm workers in the field as well as procurement of agri products. Shops selling agriculture machinery and those dealing with spare parts, supply chains and repairs as well as 'custom hiring centres' related to farm machinery will also be open from Monday. Units manufacturing drugs, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, medical infrastructure, including manufacture of ambulances, will also open. Noting that digital economy is critical to services sector, the ministry said e-commerce operations, operations of IT and IT enabled services(ITeS), data and call centres for Government activities, and online teaching and distance learning are all permitted. The IT and ITeS sector will be allowed to operate with up to 50 per cent strength. ACB ABS KR CHS VSD VGN BUN ND GSN GSNGSN

Govt U-turn on e-commerce rules, bars non-essential items; easing of lockdown curbs in select sectors  from Monday

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"></div></div>Pink Himalayan salt is billed as one of the purest and most expensive salts in the world.It's mined in the Khewra Salt Mine in Punjab, Pakistan, where it's allegedly referred to as "white gold."Over the past few years, the pink salt has taken hold of American consumers.It's become popular in specialty foods, spa treatments, and even home design (people make rock salt lamps from the prized pink salt).It's also sold at mainstream retailers like Walmart, Amazon and Whole Foods, where it costs almost 20 times more than generic table salt.So, what makes this salt so special?<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>About 200 million years ago, crystallized sea salt beds in the Himalayas were drowned in lava. The salt remained buried under snow and ice for millennia, which protected it from modern day pollution. Now, it is unrefined, unprocessed and mined by hand, making it one of the purest salts on earth. The pure conditions of sea beds make Himalayan salt more mineral-rich than processed table salt. It contains nearly 80 minerals, including phosphorus, bromine, boron, and zinc. Because its crystals are stone ground and therefore larger than fine table salt, it also has less sodium per serving. Enthusiasts such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6qdn3mO43c">Dr. Oz</a> believe these properties provide incredible <a href="http://products.mercola.com/himalayan-salt/">health benefits</a> to the respiratory system, sinuses, bones, libido, and more.However, nutritionists say that the salt is not as healthy as people believe.In an interview with <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/does-himalayan-pink-salt-hold-up-to-the-healthy-116323252232.html">Yahoo Health</a>, Rene Ficek, lead nutrition expert at Seattle Sutton's Healthy Eating said, "pink salt is quite popular at the moment, but its health claims may be grossly overstated.""The truth is that the amount of minerals is too miniscule to make any measurable difference, and we already consume plenty of the same nutrients from other elements of our diet - grains, vegetables, and meat," Ficek said.Himalayan salt may taste decent and look pretty, but it's best to take its health claims with a grain of salt. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chefs-make-crazy-foods-with-a-waffle-iron-2016-3">A bunch of chefs messed around with a waffle iron and made some crazy concoctions</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="lzcW9hMjE62o5iXX7LiIlr9OpxhlhssS" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

People are going crazy for pink Himalayan salt - here's why it's a waste of money

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The <keyword id="4497343" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="pink-salt">pink salt</keyword> comes from remnants of ancient seabeds that crystallized 600 million years ago.</li><li>It's mined deep inside the mountains of <keyword id="3001" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Pakistan">Pakistan</keyword> at the <keyword id="10713672" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="khewra-salt-mine">Khewra Salt Mine</keyword>.</li><li>Historically, Pakistan has seen little of the profits, even though pink salt is sold as a gourmet product worldwide.</li></ul>Following is a transcription of the <keyword id="21654" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="video">video</keyword>:Narrator: Himalayan salt doesn't actually come from the <keyword id="52569" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="himalayas">Himalayas</keyword>. It's mined 186 miles away in Pakistan. Thanks to its pink hue and supposed <keyword id="6362030" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="health-benefits">health benefits</keyword>, the salt has exploded in popularity since the late 2000s. Today, it's turned into lamps, statues, and of course, table salt. But extracting the coveted salt means descending into dark caves, then blasting and carrying heavy rock.Faizan Panjwani: The problem is the massive size of the blocks that come from the mine. We don't have the technology in our mine to efficiently extract the salt.Narrator: We went inside the mine turning this mountain into 400,000 tons of pink salt each year.The Khewra Salt Mine, here in the Punjab region of Pakistan, is the second largest salt mine in the world. The pink salt comes from remnants of ancient seabeds that crystallized 600 million years ago. Legend has it, it was actually Alexander the Great's horse that first discovered the salt rocks when it stopped to take a lick. Then, under British rule, salt mining ramped up in the 1870s.Today, it's a popular tourist destination and a working mine, producing the majority of the world's pink salt. All the mining starts here, at the train station. This train takes miners deep into the mountain. Here, tunnels stretch for 25 miles, and it's always 64 degrees.Asif Chauhan: The mine has a total of 17 levels. There are five above us. We are at the sixth level, or the ground floor, and there are 11 levels underground. Narrator: Three hundred miners work these dark chambers. They've used many of the same mining tools for over a century: pickaxes, hand drills, and gunpowder.Muhammad Ashraf Abbasi: First, we do the drilling. We do the drilling with a hand auger. Then we do the packing with gunpowder. Next, we ignite it by using a safety fuse, and then we blast out the salt. Worker: Warning, everyone move to the side! Warning, everyone move to the side!Abbasi: After that, just to be safe, we wait for half an hour before going in and loading the salt. Narrator: Miners will spend eight hours underground at a time.Muhammad Qamar: Obviously, working in the mine 30 to 40 feet underground is hard. But we get paid well and on time.Narrator: Only half of the mountain's salt is actually mined. The rest is used for structural support so the chambers don't collapse. Tractors haul the mined salt blocks out of the mountain. Each day, miners excavate over 1,000 tons of salt, or about the weight of 157 elephants.Outside, they search for the blocks with the best shape and coloring to send to manufacturers. Once picked, the blocks are loaded up on trucks either by hand or crane and sent across Pakistan.Historically, Pakistan couldn't process this raw pink salt, so much of it was exported to India cheaply. India would treat the salt, label it as made in India, and sell it at a premium. Pakistan saw little of the profits. NPR reported that a ton of salt sold to India for $40 could fetch $300 in Europe. In 2019, a social media campaign calling for the end of salt exports to India went viral. That same year, the Pakistani government banned all salt exports to India. The goal? Returning the profits to Pakistan.Waqas Panjwani: Twenty-three percent of Pakistan's rock salt was exported to India as raw material. Then it was re-exported overseas to the same market we are exporting to right now. The government's decision will definitely benefit us.Narrator: But some Pakistani salt exporters suffered. They didn't speak English and couldn't meet Europe's tough import standards. Only about a dozen exporters saw an opportunity to sell products under Pakistani labels directly to Europe. Muhammad was one of them. Every month, he purchases 300 tons of salt from the mine for his company, Himalayan Decor International.Muhammad Imran: From the Khewra mine, salt is loaded onto several trucks that <keyword id="6354692" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Travel">travel</keyword> on the motorway and bring it to our factory, which is in Lahore on Defence Road which is 350 km away.Narrator: His artists turn these blocks into more than 200 different products.Imran: Natural salt lamps, geometrical shapes, animal salt licks, eating and cooking plates. We are also making wall tiles. We are also making a lot of salt for food.Narrator: Most of the work is done by hand, but drills and saws have sped up the process in recent years.Imran: After that, we check the quality. Then we wash it. After that, we install a bulb and wooden base, and that brings it to the final packing stage. We produce almost 10,000 to 15,000 salt lamps monthly.Narrator: Over in Karachi, RM Salt Pakistan grinds up blocks into table salt.Faizan Panjwani: Basically this is the raw material that you can see is in different sizes. This ranges from 2 to 3 kg, 3 to 5 kg. And this is the large size, 9 to 12 kg, 12 to 15 kg. It's available in a range.Narrator: Blocks are fed into the grinder and broken down into smaller grains. Workers bag and weigh 1,000 of these pouches of pink salt every hour. Like Muhammad's factory, RM Salt also makes lamps and other specialty products. After the raw material we get, we convert it into a different shape as per our order. As you can see in the cutting machine, he is cutting different sizes. On this saw, water prevents dust from flying up. But on the grinders, it's not possible, which is why Muhammad's staff wore masks even before the pandemic. Over at RM Salt ...Faizan Panjwani: As you can see, in this facility we have installed a vacuum through which we can absorb the dust. This is an order from USA, one of our clients. We are making these goods for them. The moon shape and the heart shape, as well. After double drill, it goes through the washing process. We have to do this manually because of the different block sizes.Narrator: The lamps are then coated with a gel to prevent humidity from interacting with the salt, and then they're shrink wrapped. RM Salt ships 30 containers of products every month. Muhammad exports about 80% of his products, primarily to Western countries like the US, UK, and Spain, where demand has spiked in the last decade because of the alleged health benefits.Chauhan: Three colors of salt are found here. White, red, or pink. White has sodium chloride, pink has magnesium, and red has iron.Waqas Panjwani: 98% of this is sodium chloride, or NaCl, the same as sea salt. But the additional benefits are that it has 84 minerals like calcium, magnesium, and potassium.Rhiannon Lambert: However, it's such a very small percentage of the salt that makes up these minerals, you are highly unlikely to get any real benefit or any trace of them in your regular serving of salt itself. But nutritionally, it's pretty much similar to regular salt.Narrator: It's also pretty similar-tasting to sea salt. But others claim Himalayan salt has healing powers, whether inhaled, used in spa treatments, or in lamp form.Lambert: There's a lot of homeopathic remedies that can seem very, very appealing, but actually they're not grounded in evidence.Narrator: And it's these false health claims that have driven the price up. Himalayan salt can cost up to 20 times the price of normal table salt.Waqas Panjwani: Normally, the price of a pink salt pouch starts at 60 cents for a manufacturer. I am talking about a 1-kg bag. On the <keyword id="6354851" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="retail">retail</keyword> market, it sells for around $9. Narrator: But that money doesn't always make it back to the miners. They take home less than 1,500 rupees a day. Not much more than the cost of this bag of <keyword id="10713671" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="himalayan-sea-salt">Himalayan sea salt</keyword> at Walmart. And those salaries have stayed the same even though Pakistan has severed its salty relationship with India and the pink salt is seeing growing demand abroad.Imran: The demand for pink salt is increasing day by day across the whole world. I don't think there will be any decrease in demand or sales because people are using it a lot, and every day sales are increasing.Narrator: Luckily, the mountain won't run out of salt any time soon. It's estimated only about 220 million tons of salt have been excavated here -- nothing compared to the nearly 6.7 billion tons left.

How 800 million pounds of Himalayan salt are mined each year

Coronavirus cases in India count crosses the 24,000 mark— with 5,062 recovered as of April 25

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image"><a href="http://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&amp;VBID=2C0BXZO50A476&amp;SMLS=1&amp;RW=1247&amp;RH=962">Beawiharta/Reuters</a></div></div>Technological breakthroughs in rice will boost harvests and cut poverty. They deserve support.
When, in 1961, the government of India asked a celebrated wheat breeder, Norman Borlaug, for advice about new seeds, the subcontinent was thought to be on the verge of starvation. China actually was suffering from famine. Borlaug persuaded India to plant a new semi-dwarf variety of wheat in Punjab.
The next year, the country also tried out a dwarf variety of rice called IR8. These short-stemmed crops solved a basic problem: old-fashioned crops were long and leggy, so when fed with fertiliser they grew too tall and fell over. Borlaug's varieties put out more, heavier seeds instead. They caught on like smartphones. Over the next 40 years the green revolution spread round the world, helping ensure that, where its seeds were planted, famines became things of the past.
Now a second green revolution is stirring in the fields of Asia. It will not be the same as the first one, since it will depend not on a few miracle varieties but on tailoring existing seeds to different environments. But it promises to bring similar benefits--this time to the poor lands and poorer farmers that the first version passed by (see pages 21-23).
Such lands are poor because they are prone to floods, drought and salinity. New seeds have been developed which can survive flooding, and soon there will be varieties that tolerate drought, extreme heat and saltiness, too, making the poorest lands fertile. So the second revolution could do even more to cut poverty than the first.
This revolution is all the more vital because the gains of the first are plateauing. Annual yield growth has fallen to less than a third what it was in the green revolution and below the current rise in population. Meanwhile demand for rice is rising by almost 2% a year in Asia and soaring by 20% a year in Africa.
The gap threatens to widen, because rice is exceptionally vulnerable to environmental change. Rice farmers use almost a third of Earth's fresh water, and water shortages are pervasive. The world's rice bowls are the deltas of Asia's great rivers. These are subject to changing floods, rising salinity and growing heat stress. (Climate change is sometimes seen as a new problem to worry about now that the issue of providing food is settled. In reality it is a threat to future food supplies.)
A second revolution has been made possible by the sequencing of the rice genome in 2005 (the first cereal crop to be sequenced). This enabled breeders to discover the genes for flood resistance in one obscure variety from eastern India and transfer them to varieties all round the world. Breeders will soon do the same for genes that provide other valuable traits.
There are all sorts of things that governments could do to push this revolution forward, such as getting rid of price subsidies and letting farms consolidate into bigger, more efficient units. But they will also need to spend public money directly on research.
<h3>One grain at a time</h3>
The first green revolution was largely government-backed, with help from international research centres and American charities. You might think that nowadays the big agribusinesses would be desperate to lead the way, and they have indeed invested heavily in new strains of maize and wheat.
But rice, the focus of the second revolution, is different. Farmers can keep the seeds from one harvest and plant them in the next with no loss of yield (unlike maize). The market for rice seeds is thus tiny, so almost all research is carried out by the state.
The amounts needed are small. By one calculation, $3 billion of rice research spread over the next 25 years would pull 150m people out of extreme poverty. That is $20 a person, a bargain compared with any other anti-poverty programme. And it has worked before. The cumulative economic benefits from public research into rice are running at almost $20 billion a year, hundreds of times the cost of the investment.
Governments, though, are nervous. Some politicians worry about publicly backing genetic research, despite all the lives it could save (the latest Luddism is in Vermont--see page 41). Other health ministries have moved on to sexier causes, like fighting obesity. They should think again. It is hard to think of a way to improve more people's lives for less money.
Click <a href="https://subscriptions.economist.com/nwcd">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist.

You Searched For "punjab food grains" and got 6 results

Govt should buy crop residue like it purchases wheat, paddy: JD(U) MP

PTI

Govt U-turn on e-commerce rules, bars non-essential items; easing of lockdown curbs in select sectors from Monday

PTI

People are going crazy for pink Himalayan salt - here's why it's a waste of money

Eloise Kirn

How 800 million pounds of Himalayan salt are mined each year

Abby Narishkin,Steve Cameron

Coronavirus cases in India count crosses the 24,000 mark— with 5,062 recovered as of April 25

Navdeep Yadav

How Better Rice Could Save Millions Of Lives

The Economist