A 12-year-old Indian-American activist tried to issue summons for Warren Anderson, former chief of Union Carbide over the deadliest 1984 gas disaster in Bhopal. "Today we are here to appeal to Warren Anderson and summon him to the Indian court where he has been charged with culpable homicide, which is the equivalent of manslaughter in America," Akash Viswanath Mehta said, standing outside a skyscraper on Park Avenue, which houses the law...

Amflora is a kind of miracle potato: it is precious to the starch industry.  Johan Bergstrom, a blond and boyish man of 31, who farms here with his father, reached into the dark, soft soil and extricated a tennis-ball-size potato, holding it gently so as not to snap off any of a half-dozen white shoots that were growing out of the potato's eyes. He advised against tasting the potato, whose...

A court in the Indian city of Bhopal has sentenced eight people to two years each in jail over a gas plant leak that killed thousands of people in 1984. The convictions are the first since the disaster at the Union Carbide plant - the world's worst industrial accident. The eight Indians, all former plant employees, were convicted of "death by negligence". One had already died - the others are expected...

Manipur households may find it difficult to fill their plates with rice next year, with the ongoing economic blockade robbing farmers of essential fuel to run their tilling machines. The food and civil supplies godown now has 7,132 metric tonnes of rice while the Indian Oil Corporation in Imphal has 1,223 kilo litres of diesel. The rice will last for a month, while the diesel can keep the state running for...

As the policies on better water management work themselves out and the larger sums of monies the UPA government is spending on them have an effect, technology is the major source of growth in Indian agriculture. Improved seeds matter. While the earlier seed suppliers in agricultural universities and seed corporations reorganise themselves with the support of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, private and public private partnerships (PPP) are flourishing. Bt...