-Live Mint Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has rebuked an industry lobby for selectively using his recent comments on genetically modified cotton “to its advantage.” Ramesh said in a seminar on 12 June that there was a structural shift in India’s cotton economy and a comprehensive study was necessary to understand the relative roles of better irrigation, weather and the availability of different cotton varieties to understand how India had gone on...

-The Hindu “The aim of education is social development, and not profit-making. ‘Education shops' must either not be allowed to function or must not have profit as their motive,” said Anil Sadgopal, presidium member, All India Forum for Right to Education (AIF-RTE). Announcing that the State Platform for Common School System (SPCSS) along with the AIF-RTE will be organising a two-day all-India conference for ‘Abolishing commercialisation of education and building a...

-The Hindu It has made maximum number of requests to Google on content removal On a global scale, India made the maximum number of requests to Google through Executive and police agencies for removal of content from the company's online services, but achieved a low rate of compliance from July to December 2011. By contrast, there were five court orders for removal of content, four of them on grounds of defamation, with...

-The Economic Times It is not uncommon for Indian companies to encounter situations that require ingenious engineering combined with a uniquely Indian approach to problem solving. Automobile companies around the world have developed some exquisitely advanced diesel engine technologies, but Indian companies had to go one step ahead. More than a decade ago, as Indian car manufacturers began improving their diesel engines, some of their customers tried to reverse their efforts by...

-The United Nations The world's forests have a major role to play in the transition to a greener economy, but governments need to do more to ensure they are sustainably managed, according to a new report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), issued today. “Forests and trees on farms are a direct source of food, energy, and cash income for more than a billion of the world's poorest people,”...