-NationalGeographic.com The severe and ongoing depletion of underground water supplies in India poses a growing threat to the nation's food security. Without serious efforts to stem the mining of groundwater, food production will decline, unleashing painful social and economic consequences for this nation of 1.25 billion people. All four of the world's top irrigators - China, India, Pakistan and the United States - are pumping groundwater faster than it is being replenished...

-Livemint.com Technology can help India to quickly deliver long pending reforms More than a billion people around the world have emerged out of extreme poverty over the past two decades thanks to the surge in growth rates in countries such as China after they embraced free-market policies. Last week, billionaire philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates made a stunning claim in the latest edition of their annual letter: the lives of people living...

-The Hindu Occupational and geographic mobility across the region are bridging income and consumption-related disparities, says the World Bank report, ‘Addressing Inequality in South Asia'. The findings accordingly underscore the role of urbanisation and private sector participation as being critical to mitigating socio-economic disadvantages. Inequality should be understood in terms of monetary and non-monetary dimensions of well-being, contends the report. The share of the poorest 40 per cent of households...

-Scidev.net   * Black carbon and ozone in the atmosphere may cause India's wheat and rice crops to decline * Black carbon interferes with radiation reaching the earth while ozone is toxic to plants * Crop yield decline from pollutants may not be as large as projected by model THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Atmospheric pollutants may impact India's major crops like wheat and rice more than temperature rise, says a new study based on a ‘regression model'...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Leading US health groups including AVAC, Oxfam America, amfAR, Health Global Access Project (GAP), TAG (Treatment Action Group)and others have written to Barack Obama urging him to support India in providing "high-quality, low-cost generic medicines essential for health care around the world". This comes in the wake of the two nations agreeing to enhance engagement on IPR at the latest bilateral talks. Sunday's joint statement after...