THIS is the International Year of Millets and millets are everywhere. But far removed from all this high-voltage action, enjoying a quiet spotlight of their own, are traditional rice varieties. Belatedly, they are being recognized for superior nutritional and medicinal values as well as their organic character and the natural agricultural practices by which they are grown.
Communities have over generations grown strains of rice that are red, brown, white or black, but, as consumption goes, they have lost out to the high-yielding and mass-produced white varieties such as Basmati that have come to dominate. . .