Dr Howarth E Bouis, director of HarvestPlus, is a doctorate from Stanford University. He is promoting biofortification within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, agricultural research and nutrition community in various countries. What is biofortification of crops? Biofortification is a process where plant breeders explore crop genetic diversity in seed banks and create a crop that is rich in specific micronutrients. There are two ways to biofortify crops—conventional plant breeding and...

A growing number of endangered olive ridley sea turtles have been getting killed in Eastern India’s coastal state Orissa by mechanized vessels defying a fishing ban on one of the world’s largest turtle sanctuaries, Gahirmatha. While the government said "no more than 800" were killed since November last year, environmentalists counter that the casualty count of these tiny turtles is actually 5,000. The problem illustrates the situation that confronts Orissa and other...

The promise of the FRA remains largely unfulfilled, says a committee set up by the Ministries of Environment and Forests and Tribal Affairs. IT seems hard for a government used to controlling most of India's common lands to let go of them. Even though it has passed a law mandating more decentralised governance of forests, the government itself is proving to be the biggest obstacle in its implementation. Other than in...

Continuing its grilling of corporate honchos, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday questioned at least seven of them in connection with its ongoing probe into the 2G spectrum scam. The CBI called R.K. Krishna Kumar, who heads the Tata Realty and Infrastructure Private Ltd., to its headquarters here and quizzed him for nearly six hours. Mr. Kumar is also a board member of Tata Sons. Tata Realty Managing Director Sanjay...

The National Advisory Council today suffered its first setback in revamping the anti-communal violence bill when four associate members quit because their concerns were not addressed. Two of the members are Shabnam Hashmi and John Dayal, who were part of an advisory group that was constituted to help the conveners of a sub-committee working on the proposed law. The other two are Vrinda Grover and Usha Ramanathan, enlisted to help the...