-Deccan Herald The Green Revolution has changed life in Indian villages, but the main beneficiaries were the landlords. Daily labourers remain poor and marginalised. The limits of using ever more fertiliser and pesticides are becoming apparent. Many farmers are confused because extension services want them to reconsider practices they were told to abandon not that long ago. A member of the Santal tribe, an Adivasi community, assesses things from the village perspective. Since independence...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Sanitation projects to reduce open defecation, increasing green cover and emphasis on creating assets form the crux of the Narendra Modi-led government's blueprint for redeploying UPA's flagship social sector programme - the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGA. Top officials aware of the government's re-orientation roadmap for the rural employment guarantee scheme, being steered by rural development minister Nitin Gadkari, told ET that assessment...

-The Hindu   The NDA's first budget has thrown a few sops in the direction of the environment and the millions dependent on it. But much like its predecessors, in painting the big picture it remains embarrassingly devoid of innovative ideas on how to move India towards ecological sustainability and justice "While 2015 will be a landmark year for sustainable development and climate change policy, 2014 is the last chance for all stakeholders...

-The Hindustan Times ‘Himalayan Glaciers will disappear by 2035'. This was one the very alarming conclusions of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that was brought to my attention when I took over as minister for environment and Forests in May 2009. Could this really be true, I wondered. I then decided to convene a series of meetings with experts from different institutions across the country. And what...

-The Guardian India's PM points to Gujarat as an emblem of economic success. But despite impressive growth, the state lags behind on welfare Narendra Modi has just unveiled his first budget after winning a massive electoral victory on a development platform. The budget presented last week has disappointed those who were expecting stronger signals about a pro-market shift in economic policy, as well as in the stock market. However, the budget has...