-The Business Standard But beef up safeguards for genetically modified crop trials Environment Minister M Veerappa Moily has made the right move by overturning the untenable position taken by his predecessors on field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops. Around 200 gene-altered varieties of different crops will now be allowed to be field-tested, subject, of course, to certain necessary conditions. This could, depending on the outcome of the trials, clear the way...

-The Business Standard The recent US-India friction over trade is being driven by Big Pharma Apart from the deterioration of the business environment generally, which impacts both domestic and foreign investors, retrospective taxation has figured most prominently in the media as the principal cause of growing scepticism among foreign investors. Entirely missing from the discourse has been an equally potent factor with wholly foreign origins: the hijacking of the economic policy...

-Down to Earth The National Agroforestry Policy 2014 can substantially reduce poverty in rural India AFTER becoming the first country in the world to frame an agroforestry policy, India has gone ahead and allocated Rs 444 crore to promote agroforestry in the country. The National Agroforestry Policy 2014, announced on February 10, has the potential to substantially reduce poverty in rural India and revive agroforestry industry. Agroforestry is a farming practice in which...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court has criticised political appointments in the top child rights body and stopped fresh entries till the Centre comes up with selection guidelines and issue ads to fill vacancies. The court has given the Union women and child development ministry six weeks to come up with the norms on the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). The bar on appointments will apply till then. "Receiving...

-The Telegraph Ranchi: If in 2010, half of Jharkhand's Class V children in government schools could read Class II textbooks, only 34 fifth graders out of 100 could do so in 2013. But don't blame the child, blame the lack of teachers. The standard of Jharkhand's state-run schools is plummeting through the years, says Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2013, prepared by NGO Pratham, which annually undertakes an assessment of the...