-Deccan Chronicle Hyderabad: Temperatures will go up and the productivity of farmlands will come down in future. This could lead to a food crisis, warned the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) fifth assessment report. With increasing temperatures IPCC has also cautioned that in the rice bowls of South India heat stress on the rice crop is already approaching critical levels. The report warned that the winter yield of some crops...

-The Business Standard   NC Saxena, a former member of the National Advisory Council believes that the regulatory regime in the states continues to be oppressive. In an e-mailed interview with Aditi Phadnis, Saxena says that the fundamental problem in India is the low tax-GDP ratio and neither the last government nor the current one seems interested in increasing revenues. Edited excerpts: * The new government appears to be watering down a lot...

-The Hindu Chennai: There is accumulating evidence in India that pollution and contamination are becoming a serious public health issue, which requires focussed strategies to mitigate. "Environment in India is not a lifestyle issue. The missing dimension in the environment debate is the public health debate. One way of getting a larger political focus for environmental issues would be to pitch it as a public health issue," said Jairam Ramesh, former Union...

-The Guardian The 3,000MW Dibang dam, rejected twice as it would submerge vast tracts of biologically rich Forests, is to get environmental clearance - but huge local opposition could stall the project Six years ago, former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone for the 3,000MW Dibang multipurpose dam project. The dam, to be built across the Dibang river, in the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, will be the...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The government plans to rope in various departments and ministries such as agriculture, land resources, horticulture and social Forestry to create bigger and more durable assets under the rural job guarantee scheme, going ahead with its plans to revamp the national programme. "Considering the capacity constraint at the gram panchayat level, which is the main implementing agency for allocating works under the scheme, we are considering to...