-The Business Standard   Prime Minister Manmohan Singh can be assertive when he chooses to. He has certainly imposed his will on the government to push the case for the controversial genetically-modified (GM) food crops. Documents reviewed by Business Standard show, for almost two years, Singh and his office have been the moving force behind the decision to go ahead with field trials of GM crops, including food crops, without awaiting regulatory reforms...

-MoneyLife.in India, the world's second largest food producer, is witnessing growing distress and declining confidence in agriculture as most small and landless farmers, with less of a stake, are found to quit farming The recent unseasonal heavy rains, thunder and hailstorms originating from unusually intense western disturbances from the Mediterranean interacting with the south-easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal have ravaged the due-for-harvesting chana, lentils and wheat in Madhya Pradesh,...

-Down to Earth Bad loans of public sector banks to business are more than double the food subsidy There are some things you simply do not do in the liberalised economy. You do not put bank loans under the lens-unless these are ballooning out of control. That is, until such loans are likely to jeopardise the entire banking system and send the economy into a tailspin. And there's another thing: you don't...

-The Hindustan Times India has driven the truck of development - loaded with tar, bricks, glass, concrete...the works - right through its most treasured and fragile green spaces in the last decade. While major cities like Delhi and Mumbai sacrificed green cover for real estate, the country's finest wildlife corridors have been ceded to indiscriminate industrialisation. In the absence of a clear policy to balance development and environment, the Aravallis in Gurgaon,...

-The Times of India DEHRADUN: Around 1200 tons of Apples and potatoes have rotted in areas affected by the June flash floods in Uttarkhand as the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN) could not move them to the markets due to poor connectivity of roads. Many roads are still not in a passable state in the region. The GMVN has suffered huge losses. GMVN's general manager of marketing Pratap Shah said, "GMVN had no...