Greenpeace [a non-governmental environmental organisation] on Wednesday urged the government not to provide subsidised diesel to profit-making telecom sector for running mobile towers, and force them to shift to greener energy solutions like solar-powered towers to check pollution being emitted from generators which are used to run around four lakh towers across the country. Releasing its report – ‘Dirty talking: A case for telecom to shift from diesel to renewable'– the...

-Live Mint   After the late Charan Singh, he was the moving force behind the formidable farm lobby in north India. Seen from that vantage, one could say he became a leader in his own right only after Singh left the stage Mahendra Singh Tikait’s political career took off long after productivity growth in Green Revolution had begun to taper off. The career of this rich farmers’ leader—who died on Sunday—was emblematic...

-The Business Standard   Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee was being economical with the truth when he said that last Saturday’s petrol price hike decision was entirely that of oil marketing companies (OMCs). True, the government correctly but belatedly deregulated petrol pricing several months ago, but it is clear that despite a sharp increase in global crude oil prices in the past six months, the OMCs restrained themselves from increasing domestic...

Humanity’s current voracious consumption of resources cannot be sustained, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) cautioned in a new report today, warning that the world was already running out of cheap and sources of some essential materials such as oil, copper and gold. According to the report by UNEP’s International Resource Panel, by 2050, human beings could devour an estimated 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per...

-ToI   The government patched together an intricate—and flawed—fertiliser system over the last 40 years. It now wants to dismantle that monster. The challenge before it is to preserve its pro-agriculture and pro-poor objective, while correcting the flaws that crept in, reports M Rajshekhar If it all goes to plan, buying or selling fertiliser will never be the same for the 120-odd companies that make up this Rs 1,00,000 crore industry or...