The arrest of BJP MP Dinu Solanki's nephew, in the RTI activist Amit Jethava's murder case, has reopened some interesting dossiers on the duo. Police officials, investigating this case, have laid their hands on reports prepared earlier on Dinu Solanki and his nephew Shiva Solanki in the break down of law and order in Kodinar in 2003. Three letters written by three senior police officials in 2003 laid bare a...

Agricultural experts today cast a wary eye on the steep rise in the cost of wheat prompted by a Russian export ban and the questions looming over harvests in other parts of the world because of drought or flooding with memories still fresh of food riots set off by spiking prices just two years ago, Food prices rose 5 per cent globally during August, according to the UN, spurred mostly by...

IN A remote corner of Bahia state, in north-eastern Brazil, a vast new farm is springing out of the dry bush. Thirty years ago eucalyptus and pine were planted in this part of the cerrado (Brazil’s savannah). Native shrubs later reclaimed some of it. Now every field tells the story of a transformation. Some have been cut to a litter of tree stumps and scrub; on others, charcoal-makers have moved...

Despite growing threat to food security from global warming, India is busy acq-uiring fertile lands for industries and infrastructure. Something terrible is happening to the weather. And it is happening right across our home. From the cold desert of Ladakh to the plains of Bihar and Jharkhand, extreme weather conditions have played havoc. In neighbouring Pakistan, unprecedented floods, and that too in the arid region of Sindh, have hit more than...

Despite growing threat to food security from global warming, India is busy acq-uiring fertile lands for industries and infrastructure. Something terrible is happening to the weather. And it is happening right across our home. From the cold desert of Ladakh to the plains of Bihar and Jharkhand, extreme weather conditions have played havoc. In neighbouring Pakistan, unprecedented floods, and that too in the arid region of Sindh, have hit more than...