-The Hindu What makes public policy exciting and potentially inventive is the contested nature of the public sphere. It is anchored in a diversity of perspectives which challenges the dominance of one subject. India is a country full of paradoxes. The elite in the country are forward-looking; they emphasise the need for reskilling but they conduct all this with backward-looking institutions. An acute observer once said: "we want to be [a] knowledge...

-PTI NGOs like Greenpeace are opposing genetically engineered 'Golden Rice' without any basis, green activist Patrick Moore alleged today while pitching for its cultivation. Interestingly, Moore himself was a co-founder of Greenpeace International but later disassociated with the NGO in 1986 due to differences of opinion. He alleged that the Greenpeace is "raising money to oppose 'Golden Rice' without any basis and offering alternatives to address malnutrition". He claimed that the Golden Rice'...

-The Hindu Business Line Radha Mohan Singh, the Union Agriculture Minister, lent vocal support to genetically modified (GM) crops on Friday stating that technologically enhanced seeds could help India realise its food security ambition and believed it held great promise in minimising productivity losses particularly on account of abiotic stress factors like floods and drought. "While agriculture feeds the nation, seeds feed agriculture... Bt Cotton in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and...

The Hindu In the urgency to grant industry its due with promises of ‘Make in India,' the marginalised cannot continue to be victims of grave policy neglect and continuing alienation For some years now, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF)has been perceived as a roadblock to development or a facilitator for the industry depending on which side you are on. Former Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan's recent letter to Sonia Gandhi...

-The Hindu Business Line Mehsana (Gujarat): A monocropping culture, driven by healthy returns, threatens to hurt cotton farmers in Mehsana and other districts in the country's largest cotton-producing State, say agriculture experts working in the region. As the price of cotton slips due to excess supply and China scaling back on purchases, farmers in north Gujarat risk mounting their losses and the likelihood of reduced sowing in May. They had increased cotton...