-The Indian Express   The NDA government's move to amend the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 in the coming winter session of Parliament has run into rough weather following differences between various government departments over whether government servants and their family members should declare their assets, and whether such information should be made public or not. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) is learnt to have sided with the bureaucracy in...

-Outlook New Delhi: In an effort to empower the women inmates of Delhi's Tihar jail, an e-Library has been set up in its premises which would cater only to them. Director General (Delhi Prisons) Alok Verma inaugurated the e-library in the presence of former IPS officer Kiran Bedi and other senior officials yesterday. "E-learning will not just help these women to read and learn but also make them get used to computer...

-IPS News NAPLES, Italy: Small farmers can look to options like agroecological intensification and innovation, without necessarily turning to climate-smart agriculture, which is promoted by the United Nations but has awakened doubts among global experts meeting in this Italian city. Alison Power, a professor at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology of Cornell University in New York state, said the concept is an umbrella that can encompass too many different...

-IPS News KARNAL, India: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to make a strong pitch to world political leaders at the U.N. Climate Summit in New York on Sep. 23 to accept new emissions targets and their timelines. Launching the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) represents yet another concerted attempt to meet the world's 60-percent higher food requirement over the next 35 years, according to the Food and Agriculture...

-IPS News MALKANGIRI (Odisha)- Scattered across 31 remote hilltop villages on a mountain range that towers 1,500 to 4,000 feet above sea level, in the Malkangiri district of India's eastern Odisha state, the Upper Bonda people are considered one of this country's most ancient tribes, having barely altered their lifestyle in over a thousand years. Resistant to contact with the outside world and fiercely skeptical of modern development, this community of under...