There is a need for documentation of traditional food systems of the tribal population to "retain" and "protect" them in a number of countries and this is "never more so" than in India, an FAO official said here today. "There is a clear imperative to protect traditional food systems, local food resources and their biodiversity in a number of countries and this is never more so than in India," Food and...

Mahitosh Sarkar came here from his distant village in West Bengal 12 years ago looking for a better life, and he found it. He abandoned the penniless existence of a subsistence fisherman to become a big-city vegetable seller. His wife found work as a maid. Their four children went to school. Their tiny household, a grim but weather-tight room in a dilapidated tenement, had a color TV and a satellite...

Rules restrict construction, dumping of untreated waste, industrialisation Harvesting, dredging can be carried out in wetlands with permission from authorities The Union government on Thursday notified rules for conservation and management of wetlands that restrict harmful activities such as construction, dumping of untreated waste, and industrialisation, to prevent damage to these sensitive ecosystems with high biodiversity values. The Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2010, are aimed at ensuring better conservation and preventing degradation...

There is less than two weeks left for the Winter session of Parliament to conclude, but little business has been done so far. Both houses of Parliament have been adjourned since the session begun three weeks ago. It seems that the entire Winter session could be lost if the logjam between the government and Opposition persists. The only business that has been transacted in the last two days is the passage of...

The village bureaucrat shifted from foot to foot, hands clasped behind his back, beads of sweat forming on his balding head. The eyes of hundreds of wiry village laborers, clad in dusty lungis, were fixed upon him. A group of auditors, themselves villagers, read their findings. A signature had been forged for the delivery of soil to rehabilitate farmland. The soil had never arrived, and about $4,000 was missing. The...