World nuclear agricultural scientists said that nuclear induced mutations in a number of crop species in several countries have contributed significantly to food security and agricultural economy. “Induced mutations have contributed significantly to the world agriculture by producing mutants with enhanced production and productivity in a large number of crop species,” scientists from Asia-Pacific countries said at the international conference on ‘Isotope technologies and applications—New Horizons’ which concluded here on Wednesday. A...

The Kashmir Himalayan region has been a hotly disputed area for decades, with both India and Pakistan laying claim to it. But some Kashmiris see their homeland not only as an area of conflict, but also as a land of agricultural opportunity. Indian-controlled Kashmir is a predominately agricultural region that produces fruit, grains and vegetables for the Indian market. More than 60 percent of the country's apples are grown there. Khuram Mir...

Chhattisgarh special prosecutor TC Pandya on Friday claimed that civil rights activist Dr Binayak Sen's wife Ilina was in correspondence with the ISI — a huge gaffe. For, the ISI she had links with was the Indian Social Institute, not the Pakistani intelligence agency. Pandya was deposing in a local sessions court and said that Sen had dealings not just with local Maoist networks but also international terrorist groups as well. He...

For the Human Rights Day in 2010 the Asian Human Rights Commission presents the reports on the state of human rights in eleven countries in Asia; Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea and Sri Lanka. The general picture that emerges is one of the failures of the states to carry out their obligations for the protection of people.Serious defects are evident in the area...

South Asia in general and India in particular have the dubious distinction of standing out for wrong reasons every time a new global poverty report is released. We not only have the largest number of underweight children, a very high maternal mortality rate and the world’s highest number of out of school children but we also top the global malnutrition chart. (See links below for more details)  However the 2011 United...