-The Times of India If you are worried about trees facing a hostile environment in the city, here is some more grim news. Many old trees across the city are struggling to survive as their roots are being choked by concrete. One such stretch is on Press Enclave Road where a number of Alstonia or Saptaparni trees are getting choked with concrete and cement tiles as part of Delhi government's pavement...

-The Economic Times It has never happened since Independence. May be not even in the last 1,000 years what happened during October 2011-September 2012. India exported 10 million tonnes of rice, valued at around $6 billion, becoming the largest exporter of rice, replacing Thailand and Vietnam, generally the two largest exporters of rice. This is now known to many in rice circles. But what is little known is that in 2011-12, India also emerged...

-Down to Earth Rice cultivation has led to waterlogging and soil salinity in Haryana’s Jhajjar district CASTE-BASED khap panchayats of Haryana are usually in the news for passing regressive and, often, controversial orders in the name of honouring social customs. But this year in January, the Jhakkar khap panchayat of Jhajjar district gave a rather unusual order in the larger interest of the farming community. It ordered that all the 36...

-IANS WASHINGTON: The sea level is rising faster than expected and may cross one metre mark by the end of this century -- double that of the estimates made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, says a study. "What's missing from the models used to forecast sea-level rise are critical feedbacks that speed everything up," says Bill Hay, a geologist at the University of Colorado, US. The feedbacks include...

-The Business Standard The consequences of unplanned growth in Haryana real estate One of the positive consequences of the recent focus on the dealings between companies owned by Robert Vadra and the real estate giant DLF is that the unregulated nature of the Haryana land market has become a topic of discussion. Mr Vadra’s companies’ purchases of additional land and apartments were funded from the windfall gains that accrued after a 3.5...