-The Hindu   The urban future depends on making cities intelligent, and that applies equally to both new and old parts of the city Smart cities, the flagship project of the Bharatiya Janata Party's urban vision, have received a firm financial allocation in the Union budget. The government has provided Rs.7,060 crore to build 100 smart cities as satellite towns on the outskirts of large cities to accommodate the burgeoning urban population. Foreign...

-The Pioneer India's water distribution and consumption systems must be sustainable, drought-proofed, and adapted to climate change. Then the country can move from ‘drought-relief' status to a position where it has relief from droughts The Indian Meteorological Department is still unsure of the timing and the intensity of El Niño, further raising the grim prospect of insufficient monsoons and an imminent drought poised to affect many parts of the country. According...

-The Tribune The community has to pay the cost of environmental degradation if sustainable agricultural practices are not followed. Food can also be produced by in-built provisions for ecological services. For this, sustainability issues have to be addressed with policy support. An ecosystem is a dynamic, complex, functional unit of diverse living organisms, physical environment and humans are its integral part. The wellbeing of mankind depends upon food, water, fibre, medicine, flood...

-Economic and Political Weekly     Sustained and focused efforts have to be made by the Tamil Nadu state government to provide relief and rehabilitation to the drought affected people of the state. S Rajendran (myrajendran@gmail.com) is with the Department of Economics, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu. Due to the failure of the north-east monsoon in December 2013, Tamil Nadu is witnessing drought like conditions this year, leading to poor agricultural productivity, rural distress,...

-Down to Earth   UN agency's latest state of the forests report says poverty alleviation and rural employment should be the ulterior driving force in amending old forest policies Recognising the role of forests in providing livelihood to people, UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has asked nations to formulate people-centric forest policies. "It is time for forestry to shift perspective from trees to people," says FAO's annual "The State of the World's...