-The Hindu Khammam (Andhra Pradesh): Efforts by Association for Social and Humanise Action (ASHA), a Chintur-based NGO, to conserve the local varieties of traditional crops and promote community-based sustainable agricultural practices has earned the appreciation of the Andhra Pradesh State Bio-diversity Board (APSBB). ASHA has been engaged in efforts to conserve the local varieties of food crops such as paddy and millets by organising awareness programmes in collaboration with reputed organisations such...

-The Hindu   Horticulture Department is doing a survey on the crop in the State Karnataka: The Horticulture Department has begun a comprehensive survey of the jackfruit crop to set the stage to promote its cultivation in a big way in the State. Jackfruit cultivation is suitable for Karnataka because of the presence of large tracts of drought-prone land. Horticulture Director D.L. Maheshwar disclosed this at the inaugural session of a two-day international symposium...

-The Hindu   Forest cover loss has occurred at a period when area under jhum cultivation is declining, suggesting that the land use policy has been counterproductive to forests Two spectacular bamboo dances, one celebrated, the other reviled, enliven the mountains of Mizoram. In the colourful Cheraw, Mizo girls dance as boys clap bamboo culms at their feet during the annual Chapchar Kut festival. The festival itself is linked to the other dance:...

-The Hindu Environmental activist Vandana Shiva says the real motives behind GMOs are the patents and royalties that come with it Two things happened in 1984, begins environmental activist Vandana Shiva. One was Operation Blue star and the second, the riots following the assassination of the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. "Something happened before Operation Blue Star and that story doesn't get told, that is the story of the Green Revolution," said Shiva,...

-The Guardian Rice conservationist Debal Deb grapples with 'mindless Indian elite' to reintroduce genetically diverse, drought-tolerant varieties   Fifty years ago, every Indian village would probably have grown a dozen or more rice varieties that grew nowhere else. Passed down from generation to generation and family to family, there would have been a local variety for every soil and taste - rice that would grow well in droughts or deep floods, which had...