Flat yields for five years and rising insecticide use are jeopardising the success of Bt cotton technology Cotton has been the biggest success story in Indian agriculture since the Green Revolution. In a country struggling with stagnant yields in most crops, cotton has been the one bright spot. Production has soared from 13.6 million bales (each bale is 170 kg) in 2002-03 to 31.2 million bales in 2010-11—a figure that catapulted...

-The United Nations   Animal experts from 50 countries meeting at a United Nations-backed conference today expressed concern about the sustainability of current levels of trade in snake skins used in luxury products and another 20 animal species used in biomedical research, the food industry or as pets. More than 200 scientists conferring in the 25th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) animal...

Affluent farmers are exploiting MGNREGS, the central govt’s flagship programme, sending their workers to draw wages whenever they are not required on their farms THE GOVERNMENT seems to be in a fix with its flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) being widely misused even as the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) decides to conduct its own independent audit of the scheme along with National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)...

In a week when the central food ministry is reviewing the functioning of the much-maligned public distribution system (PDS) and plans to pull up laggard states on poor storage facilities, low grain offtake, high diversion and a persistently slacking programme, an objective relook at the world’s largest grain distribution system is imperative. Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has time and again emphasised that streamlining the PDS in the usual-suspect states to...

-The Hindu   ‘Will work on full-time basis to evolve more objective standards of scrutiny' Amid criticism that industrialisation and economic growth were getting blocked due to delay in granting “environmental clearances” to industries, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday announced the government's plans to set up an independent regulator for giving environmental clearances. “We also hope to establish an independent regulator — the National Environment Appraisal and Monitoring Authority — soon. This...