-The Hindu Though studies point to an increase in the pace of glacier wastage in the western Himalayas, long-term monitoring is required to study glacier evolution and its relation to the climate At dawn, Mohd Soheb begins an arduous trek to the high camp at Chhota Shigri glacier in the Pir Panjal range in Spiti valley, Himachal Pradesh. From the PWD guesthouse at Chota Dara, he walks down to the Chandra river...

-Hard News Floods in Kashmir could have been managed better if there was a reliable early warning system The first fortnight of September saw Jammu and Kashmir being ravaged by severe flash floods. But, according to the snatches of news we got, the monsoon was below average in the state until the last week of August. Thereafter, four days of incessant rain in the Valley and in Jammu made almost all the...

-The Business Standard   NC Saxena, a former member of the National Advisory Council believes that the regulatory regime in the states continues to be oppressive. In an e-mailed interview with Aditi Phadnis, Saxena says that the fundamental problem in India is the low tax-GDP ratio and neither the last government nor the current one seems interested in increasing revenues. Edited excerpts: * The new government appears to be watering down a lot...

-The Times of India Haridwar: The journey of a thousand miles, they say, starts with a single step. Rahul Kumar should know. The 29-year-old took the first step, quit his job in a pesticide firm and returned to his roots with a desire to do something for his village. Today, Kumar's wish has come true. With the innovative farming practices that he ushered in at his village Liberhedi near Haridwar, life...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court today said "heads should roll" because the Ganga has remained polluted even after 30 years and Rs 20,000 crore of clean-up efforts and hinted it might order the closure of industrial units pumping waste into the sacred river. "You can't shift the city but at least you can shift the factories," a three-judge bench said in a terse warning to over 700 such units as...