A release said the award signifies the station’s unwavering commitment to maintain the highest standards in quality seed production and has emerged as a front runner setting an example for excellence in the field of seed production

Government allocates ₹1.52 lakh crore for agriculture and allied sectors in the Union Budget 2024-25; Finance Minister announces that the Centre will work with States to promote digital public infrastructure for agriculture

Union Minister for Food and Consumer Affairs Pralhad Joshi has announced that States can buy rice from the Food Corporation of India at ₹2,800/quintal without participating in e-auction.  

The data will be used for formulating policies and programmes for farmers and the dairy sector

The government initiated the sale of onions at a subsidised rate through mobile vans and outlets of NCCF and NAFED.

The new MSP for a quintal of wheat is ₹2,425 in comparison to ₹2,275 per quintal, which was in place for the previous rabi season

Dr. Sitko warns that the West Asia and Ukraine situation will continue to impact fertiliser and oil prices. He urged reducing dependence on imported fertilisers and boosting domestic production

How H&M, Zara and Marks & Spencer are buying viscose from highly polluting factories in Asia. By Natasha Hurley.

Britain’s largest festival about refugees and sanctuary is more relevant than ever, writes Lydia Noon.

The world will miss the lawyer and philantrophist who defended Mandela and was chair of Oxfam, writes Mari Marcel Thekaekara.

Kim Jong-un's headline grabbing aggressive irrationalism takes some beating (though he might have met his match in recent times...)

Rûwâhîne by Ifriqiyya Electrique; The Underside of Power by Algiers: our music reviews of the month.

The guerrillas are handing weapons over to the UN, but they are in fear. Thomas Mortensen reports from Urabá.

A source of corruption and environmental degradation. Rod Harbinson reports.

He puts his life on the line to protect the Democratic Republic of Congo's national parks.

The author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist talks to Graeme Green about extremism, the refugee crisis and feeling at home in the past.

Polyp's latest cartoon, from our June magazine.

Browsing the Web on your smartphone these days can feel like a gauntlet: accept this cookie consent, close this newsletter promo, avoid this app install banner. This morass of attention-seeking actions makes it hard to focus on content. Enter Apple's Distraction Control feature.

There's more than 7 billion active smartphones on the planet. This is the Web they are getting.

I won't get into how the Web became a minefield of pop-ups, banners, overlays, modals, and other forms of annoyance. For that you can take a look at my Mind the Gap presentation which goes into depth on why and what designers can do about it. But it's pretty clear the average mobile Web experience sucks.

And when things suck, people usually decide to do something about it. In this case, with iOS 18, Apple is giving average folks a chance to fight back with Distraction Control. When turned on, this new feature allows anyone to remove distracting elements on Web pages complete with a satisfying animation.

Newsletter pop-up? Boom, gone. Mobile app banner? Boom. Interstitial ad? Boom. Is it perfect? No. Elements might come back after you remove them if the page is reloaded. Accessing the control takes a few taps. But it's a way for people to fight back against Web clutter and we need more.

The most significant user interface change from iOS 17 to iOS 18 are the navigation differences in Apple's Photos app. The ubiquitous tab bar that's became the default navigation model in mobile apps is gone and in its place is one long scrolling page. So how does it work and why?

Most mobile applications have adopted a bottom bar for primary navigation controls. On Android it's called bottom navigation and on iOS, a tab bar, but the purpose is the same: make the top-level sections of an application visible and let people move between them.

And it works. Across multiple studies and experiments, companies found when critical parts of an application are made more visible, usage of them increases. For example, Facebook saw that not only did engagement go up when they moved from a “hamburger” menu to a bottom tab bar in their iOS app, but several other important metrics went up as well. Results like this made use of tab bars grow.

But in iOS 18, Apple removed the tab bar in their Photos app. Whereas the prior version had visible tabs for the top-level sections (Library, For You, Albums, Search), the redesign is just a single scroll view. The features previously found in each tab are now accessed by scrolling up and down vs. switching between tabs. One notable exception is Search which stays anchored at the top of the screen.

In addition to the persistent Search button, there's also a Select action and user profile image that opens a sheet with account settings. As you scroll up into your Photo library a persistent set of View controls appears at the bottom of the screen as well. The Close action scrolls you to the end of your Photo library and reveals a bit of the actions below making the location of features previously found in tabs more clear.

It's certainly a big change and given the effectiveness of tab bars, its also a change that has people questioning why? I have no inside information on Apple's decision-making process here but based on what I've learned about how people use Google Photos, Yahoo! Photos, and Flickr, I can speculate.

1. By far the dominant use of a Photo gallery is scrolling to find an image whether to share, view, or just browse.
2. Very few people organize their photo libraries and those that do, do it rarely.
3. People continue to have poor experiences with searching images, despite lots of improvements, so they default to browsing when trying to find photos.
4. Most automatic curation features like those found in For You just get ignored.

All that together can easily get you to the design answer of "the app should just be a scrolling list of all your Photos". Of course there's trade-offs. The top-level sections, and their features are much less visible, and thereby less obvious. The people who do make use of features like Albums and Memories now need to scroll to them vs. tapping once. But as iOS18 rolls out to everyone in the Fall, we'll see if these trade-offs were worth it.

In her How to Use AI to Build Accessible Products presentation at Smashing Conf New York, Carie Fisher discussed using AI coding tools to test and suggest fixes for accessibility issues in Web pages. Here's my notes on her talk.

• AI is everywhere. You can use it to write content, code, create images, and more. It impacts how everyone will work.
• But ultimately, AI is just a tool but it might not always be the right one. We need to find the tasks where it has the potential to add value.
• Over 1 billion people on the planet identify as having a disability. Accessible code allows them to access digital experiences and helps companies be complaint with emerging laws requiring accessible Web pages and apps. Businesses also get SEO, brand, and more benefits from accessible code.
• AI tools like Github Copilot can find accessibility issues in seconds consistently, especially compared to the manual checks currently being done by humans. AI can also spot patterns across a codebase and suggest solutions.
• Existing AI coding tools like Github Copilot are already better than Linters for finding accessibility issues.
• AI can suggest and implement code fixes for accessibility issues. It can also be added to CI/CD pipelines to check for accessibility issues at the point of each commit. AI can also serve as an accessibility mentor for developers by providing real-time suggestions.
• More complex accessibility issues especially those that need user context may go unfound when just using AI. Sometimes AI output can be incomplete or hallucinate solutions that are not correct. As a result, we can't over rely on just AI to solve all accessibility problems. We still need human review today.
• To improve AI accessibility, provide expanded prompts that reference or include specifications. Code reviews can double check accessibility suggestions from AI-based systems. Regularly test and refine your AI-based solutions to improve outcomes.
• Combing AI and human processes and values can help build a culture of accessibility.

Exhibition: 28 Mar 2018 - 29 Mar 2018, London, United Kingdom. Organized by The IET.

Breakthrough could lead to new type of energy source

Technique could be used to create quantum-information systems

New material is made by compressing treated wood

Revamped accelerator will soon be smashing electrons and positrons together

Elizabeth Tasker details the good, the bad and the confusing of working as a physicist in Japan

Elizabeth Tasker details the good, the bad and the confusing of working as a physicist in Japan

New device could boost telecommunications and be adapted for photonics

Exhibition: 20 Apr 2018 - 21 Apr 2018, NEC, Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Advani should know that you have to always bet on a winning horse or the one that holds promise of winning. Have his ambitions to rule the country clouded taking a decision that could help his party in the long run?

A fashion stylist is curating a nomadic shop highlighting hand-picked vintage pieces, and art

Bringing you the top five watches at the 2018 version of Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie

Here are the latest looks to steal from the fashion week...

Baselworld, one of the most important watch fairs in the world that hosts brands like Rolex, Omega and Breitling was held in Basel this month from March 22-27. Here’s a Luxe review of some of the novelties to watch out for

Dyson’s new soundless hairdryer has raked up a lot of noise, but is it worth the price tag?

Notes from Baselworld 2018, keeping an eye out for top innovations in watchmaking

Every year just before Easter, Basel hosts the world’s biggest and most important watch show where some of the most prominent watchmakers arrive to boast of their latest creations. As this year’s Baselworld went off successfully, we bring you the top five men’s timepieces from the Messe Basel exhibition centre

Tblisi won’t disappoint the architectural buff, with its massive art deco buildings, and ornate hanging balconies

A walk through the University of Leuven in Belgium throws up insights, brews and delicious food

The 2018 Baselworld focusses anew on women’s watches. Watch manufacturers are now no longer emphasising on just bejewelled timepieces but also offering complications. Here is our pick of the top four timepieces that stand out from the rest

Family car to speedster, the Audi RS6 brings a smile to your face

To live like a king — or a queen — take a trip to Jaipur, now being called the City of Palaces

Sonam Kapoor Ahuja talks about her brand Rheson, her upcoming film and what she wants young people to know

Some stores in India have declared a war on waste

The Jaguar F-type downsizes its engine but upsizes the handling

The new solid waste management rules are an attempt to plug the country’s mounting garbage problem. But much of it is only on paper

Up, close and personal with Masaba Gupta on wedding outfits and life choices