-The Hindu New Delhi: Even as countries negotiate to arrive at a new global accord to counter the climate change crisis in Paris, an audit report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday showed that the government had failed to meet its targets for scaling up the use of renewable energy sources under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). The NAPCC had envisaged raising renewable energy sources to 8 per cent...

-Down to Earth While northeastern states are the most hit, Andaman & Nicobar Islands gained maximum forests India may have lost 2,511 sq km of prime forests, says the latest Forest Survey of India (FSI) report released on Friday, December 4. Prime forests are classified as very dense and mid-dense with canopy densities of at least 70 per cent and 40 per cent respectively. On the other hand, the report stated that India has...

-Business Standard Looking at economics behind agricultural households, a survey notes that 68.3% of such households still relied on agriculture as primary source of income Rural distress is a known story but a survey by NSSO has revealed the alarming level of fragmentation in farmland and unavailability of jobs. As many as 69 per cent agricultural households own less than a hectare of farmland each, making farming unviable and forcing migration to...

-The Hindu Business Line A CAG audit shows that the Centre and State governments have been criminally remiss over disaster management The unprecedented and continuing rains that have broken a 100-year record and have wreaked havoc in Chennai for over a week, highlight both elaborate rescue and relief efforts as well as gaps in the existing policy on disaster planning. It is true that swift deployment of the armed forces to evacuate...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The national rural employment scheme is set to allow use of labour-displacing machinery in all activities in a move that, social activists say, would defeat the objective of guaranteed 100 days' work to a rural household. The rural development ministry is set to amend its guidelines under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to allow use of machinery such as JCBs, rollers, mechanical mixers and...