-The Times of India PATIALA: In a move aimed at preventing ‘desertification’ of Punjab by saving more than 24 lakh million litres of water in just five days, the state government has issued a notification to delay the paddy sowing by another five days. The five-day delay would be saving enough water to meet all requirements of the state (including domestic and industrial) for over one and a half years. The notification has...

-The Hindu Project will be on display at IIT-Delhi’s Open House To come up with a solution to deal with air pollution in the Capital during the winter due to stubble burning, Kriya Labs, a start-up incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi has come up with a method to convert agro-waste into pulp that can be used to make bioethanol, paper and tableware. Biodegradable The team, led by Professor Neetu Singh, said farmers...

-The Indian Express Curbing stubble burning is about inducing behavioural changes in farmers. Given that crop residue burning has an environmental footprint and poses health hazards, one needs to be cautious while evaluating the Centre’s policy to mitigate the crisis. But there is also an urgent need for such an evaluation. The Centre has allocated Rs 1,050 crore to the states where crop residue burning poses a pollution hazard. The Union Ministry...

-Hindustan Times Increased usage of domestic coal during winter accounts for 84 per cent of harmful emissions, says study Pollution in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, hit a dangerous level during winter when tiny particulate matter was recorded five times more than the permissible limit mainly due to the use of coal for domestic purpose, a new study has said. The study by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune...

-TheSundayGuardianLive.com Delhi’s problem of being covered by smoke started right after the Punjab Preservation of Subsoil Water Act in 2009, which delayed the burning of crops till late October, was implemented for the first time. Until a few years ago, when farmers in Punjab burnt the remnants of the rice crops in their fields in preparation for sowing wheat, the smoke from such fires was confined to Punjab. Back then, farmers burnt...