-The Deccan Chronicle   India needs to have a proper set of protocols and a credible regulatory mechanism to address issues related to genetically modified crops, according to Abhijit Sen, member of the Planning Commission. Mr Sen was addressing a gathering at the inaugural day of the two-day international seminar on ‘Biotechnology in Indian agriculture: performance, potential and concerns’ here on Wednesday. He said that the attempt to introduce Bt brinjal failed because...

River Brahmaputra has eaten more than half of Asia's largest riverine island Majuli over the last 60 years. With land disappearing, there is progressive loss of the traditional means of livelihood of its people, leading to their displacement. Some lately are migrating even as far away as Andhra Pradesh, finds out Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty after a visit. Farmer Sridhar Bora stops mid-way as he brings down his axe on a tree...

Dumps trickle into the rivers and occasionally collapse, flooding homes and fields with muddy water The reddish hills dot large tracts of the Goan landscape—mounds of waste soil and other debris that have been left behind after iron ore was dug out from some 95 mines. Accumulating since the 1960s, the dumps, as they are known, are estimated at 750 million tonnes (mt) and consist of top soil, mud and iron...

Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh admitted lapses of the past but spoke of a new beginning today in Saranda while unveiling an action plan for the forest region that was under the shadow of Maoist terror for over a decade. Armed with goodies like bicycles and transistor radios for residents of Chotanagra panchayat, about 120km from district headquarters of Chaibasa, Ramesh made it clear that the implementation of the development...

—Xinhua Deepening degradation and scarcity of land and water resources pose a severe challenge to the world's capacity to meet human demands by 2050, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Director-General Jacques Diouf said on Monday. FAO report In the last 50 years, a significant increase in food production combined with demographic pressure and unsustainable agriculture practices have spoiled the land and water systems upon which food production depended, Diouf told a press...