-Frontline India’s forest cover has been steadily growing in recent years, with a steep rise in the extent of very dense forests, but the loss of over 20,000 sq km of moderately dense forests is a cause for concern. India’s forest cover has increased by 5,871 square kilometres from the government’s 2011 assessment to 6,97,898 sq km or 69.79 million hectares, according to the Indian State of Forest Report 2013 released...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi may claim that Dalits are being increasingly targeted under the present dispensation but statistics put out by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) during the last few years when UPA was in power show that crimes against Scheduled Castes rose almost steadily to 47,064 in 2014 from 39,408 in 2013 (19%), 33,655 in 2012 (17%), 33,719 in 2011, 32,712 in 2010 and 33,594 in...

-Business Standard Both sides make claims and counter claims over who owes money to whom in plea filed before Bombay HC by Monsanto Hyderabad: The rising dispute between Monsanto and the Indian seed companies over the quantum of trait value being fixed towards the transfer of BT Cotton technology reached to a peak with both the parties making claims and counter claims over who vows the money to whom in a petition...

-Business Standard Says the actual poverty is much higher than suggested by the multilateral lender, adding there is lack of scientific basis in computing the poverty line The government has contested the World Bank's recently released data that showed only 12.4 per cent of India's population was poor in 2011-12, considering an expenditure cut-off of $1.9 a person a day on purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. It said the actual poverty was...

-The Times of India BHOPAL: At a time when suicides by farmers in Madhya Pradesh following scanty rain and poor yield have brought back focus on their plight, allegedly more than 1.77 lakh ghost farmers benefitted from interest subsidies on their loans. Putting a question mark on the much hyped 0% interest farm loan scheme of the state government, a series of RTI queries by TOI revealed that between 2007-08 and 2012-13,...