-PTI   Over six lakh trees and some 1,800 betel vines will have to be sacrificed to set up Posco's Rs 52,000 crore mega steel project in Orissa's coastal Jagatsinghpur district. The trees to make way for the greenfield project include about three lakh casuarina and as many horticultural plants, official sources said. Local people have voiced strong opposition against the move to clear the trees, arguing that they will be exposed to...

The United Nations and its partners are promoting the use of all possible means of communication, including social networking, blogs and even flash mobs, to get the message out on the benefits of breastfeeding beyond clinics and delivery rooms to the wider public. Breastfeeding is directly linked to reducing the death toll of children under five, yet only 36 per cent of infants below the age of six months in developing...

The well being dug under the Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme at a cost of Rs 2.63 lakh at Gutjera village in Khunti district could not withstand the first spell of monsoon rain. On July 18, its walls collapsed, and so did the dreams of Shravan Mahato of reaping “three crops a year”. His isn’t the only well to have collapsed under the first brush of monsoon. Government estimates...

-The Deccan Herald   At a time when farmers often demand compensation for failed crops, Jai Maruthi Devaraj, a ryot of Jannapura in the taluk has set an example on how to reap rich benefits in farming. His three acre farm with dense banana plantation is hard to miss on Belur road. He has grown plantains, ginger, cardamom, arecanut, mango, sapota, lemons and other fruit bearing trees and plants.  Devaraj hopes to earn a...

-IANS   Farmers from Greater Noida on Sunday demanded a compensation at the rate of Rs.10,000-11,500 per square metre for their acquired lands, a village headman said. The demand is a part of a charter to be given to theGreater Noida Industrial Development Authority and filed in the Allahabad High Court, which is hearing the farmers' petitions against land acquisition. On the direction of theAllahabad High Court to reach an accord for an...