-The Indian Express It took the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) six years, 18 drafts and a prod from the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to finalise the Guidelines for Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) this August. Three months on, it is yet to notify the rules that would allow it to collect from domestic and foreign companies 0.1-1 per cent of their ex-factory gross sales of products using biological resources and traditional...

-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...

-Outlook In addition to amending the Rules of the Forest Rights Act, greater attention needs to be paid to changing the Land Acquisition Act   There is no explicit provision in the Forest Rights Act, 2006 for obtaining permission of the Gram Sabha for diversion of forest lands to non-forest purposes. However, Section 4(5) of the Act prevents government to evict any forest dweller unless the recognition process as provided in the...

-Economic and Political Weekly The cultivation of geneticallymodified crops, especially food crops, is not just a domestic issue; it has an impact on global food trade as well. Sukhpal Singh (sukhpal@iimahd.ernet.in) is at the Centre for Management in Agriculture, IIM, Ahmedabad. There is no doubt that the application of biotechnology can lead to yield improvement, cost cutting and lower crop losses, besides providing more processable raw materials and designer products. That is why...

-The Hindu AgroForestry promotes productive cropping environments, prevents deforestation, protects watersheds and enables agricultural land to withstand extreme weather events Growing trees on farms is a triple-win strategy for combating simultaneously the challenges of increasing food production, mitigating greenhouse gases and adapting to climate change. It is an instrument of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), catapulted to centre-stage by President Obama's launch of the Global Alliance for CSA at the World Climate Summit on...