-The Hindu   Subject to a list of conditions that activists say are not strong enough After put on hold for a year, Lavasa's controversial township project on the hills near Pune has been given the green signal subject to a list of conditions that activists say are not strong enough. Ironically, it was last week's criminal complaint filed by the Maharashtra government against the Lavasa's promoters for violation of green norms that finally...

-The Telegraph   Indian plant biologists have sequenced the full genome of pigeonpea, arming themselves with information that they say will help speed up the development of improved pigeonpea varieties and boost yields of India’s most popular pulse. A consortium of scientists from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and several academic institutions has identified 47,004 genes that code for proteins in the pigeonpea (arhar or tur), a grain legume that is consumed...

The word ‘hunger’ does not appear in the 12th Plan Approach Paper even once, whereas according to the latest Global Hunger Index Report, India continues to be in the category of those nations where hunger is ‘alarming’. What is worse, India is one of the three countries where the hunger index between 1996 and 2011 has gone up from 22.9 to 23.7, while 78 out of the 81 developing countries...

To control inflation and ensure long-term economic growth, India needs to harness the creativity of the large number of its farmers and entrepreneurs, especially in rural areas. The latest WPI inflation data show primary articles inflation in double digit, driven mainly by food inflation which remains stubbornly high at over 9 per cent. The high food prices are the result of structural factors with shortages getting aggravated as demand continues to outstrip...

Absence of preventive measures and affordable and accessible health care leads to nearly 500 encephalitis deaths in Uttar Pradesh. IT is a strange paradox. In a country that aspires to be a superpower and boasts of rapid economic growth, 488 children died in a State, Uttar Pradesh, from encephalitis alone this year. It is nothing less than a national shame and tragedy. In six districts of Bihar, close to 200 children...