-PTI ‘This exciting project will make South ASIa’s rich and vibrant printed heritage accessible to everyone’ A new British Library project will digitise 4,000 early printed Bengali books, amounting to more than 800,000 pages, as part of the U.K. India Year of Culture plans for 2017. The digitisation project is part of a wider “Two Centuries of Indian Print” project, an international partnership led by the British Library with funding from the Newton...

-Village Square The Maldharis of the vast Banni grasslands in Gujarat show how people cope with enforced change caused either by natural forces or human intervention and how vulnerability can be turned into opportunity. Banni, located along the northern border of Kachchh district in Gujarat, is a vast stretch of 3,847 sq km area of dry grasslands. Known for its pastoralist activities for centuries, the area is regarded as ASIa’s largest tropical...

-Down to Earth FAO estimates that the world will need to produce some 60 per cent more food, on an average, to feed a hungry world by 2050 Governments, in conjunction with the private sector, need to tap agricultural science and technology research capacities to meet the zero hunger Challenge by 2030. This requires greater public expenditure and investment in science and technology, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says. Earlier, the...

-Hindustan Times Chinsurah, West Bengal: A 163-year-old municipality administering a small town in West Bengal has shown the world how to manage solid waste in an eco-friendly way, potentially giving urban planners and administrators the key to tackling one of the biggest civic problems. The initiatives of Uttarpara-Kotrung municipality helped the Kolkata Solid Waste Management Improvement Project win a global award, defeating nearest contenders Auckland and Milan in urban solid waste management...

-Frontline.in Interview with Utsa Patnaik, professor emerita of economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. By T.K. RAJALAKSHMI THE FALLOUT of the decision of the National Democratic Alliance government to demonetise currency of higher denominations has been felt across all sections of people. There are concerns that it will lead to an overall economic slowdown given the acute shortage of currency for industrial and agricultural operations. The impact on agriculture and those dependent on agriculture...