-The Telegraph The poor rainfall performance is likely to impact India’s rice yield this year, a senior agrometeorology scientist said today amid growing concerns over the rainfall deficit persisting 45 days into the monsoon season. Rainfall activity over the past week has reduced India’s land area under rain stress from 82 per cent on July 7 to 59 per cent today, but the cumulative rainfall is still 21 per cent below normal,...

-The Indian Express   While Jethava’s killing hit the headlines, many others are nursing their wounds The murder of RTI activist Nadeem Saiyed in Ahmedabad on Saturday is only one among several incidents where those seeking to expose corruption have been targeted. “The Gujarat government has failed to protect rights of RTI activists,” says Bhikhu Jethava, father of Amit Jethava, an RTI activist who was shot dead outside the Gujarat High Court in 2010. Bhikhu...

Delayed monsoon rains in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan are expected to impact the sowing of key crops such as cotton, groundnut, soybean, moong, urad, tur, seasum and potato. Farmers who had prepared the land in the hope of rains by June 15 are worried. According to the India Meteorological Department , monsoon is likely to remain subdued over the three states. AB Majumdar, deputy director general meteorology, Pune, said, "Rainfall will...

Leaders of political parties extend support to villagers It is a spontaneous people's movement, says Jhadaphia The first bugle of revolt against the proposal to set up a 6000 MW capacity nuclear power plant at Jaspara-Mithi Virdi village in Bhavnagar district in the Saurashtra Region of Gujarat was sounded on Friday. The village panchayats of over 50 coastal villages in the district, which apprehend direct impact if the nuclear power plant is set...

Agitations show people don't want blind development Launches research centre on marine bio-diversity Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday criticised the country's “blind development plans” at the cost of ecological balance. “I am not against development but it should not be at the cost of our environment. We are presently following development plans blindly which can only lead to damage of the environment with ultimate impact on the...