-The Hindustan Times   Chhajali (Sangrur): The ongoing parliamentary elections hold little meaning for 80-year-old debt-ridden Jasmail Kaur as they cannot change her fate. Jasmail has been living alone at her small house at Chhajali village of Sunam since her 19-yearold son Jaggi committed suicide 18 years ago. "Jaggi was two when his father Gurjant Singh died of a prolonged illness," says Jasmail with tears in her eyes. "For the past 18 years,...

-The Times of India   NEW DELHI: State-run oil biggies are to tap solar power to light up the lives of one million school-going kids and help them shine in academics. The companies are to provide solar home lighting systems so the children can study after dark without suffering the heat and toxic fumes of kerosene lamps. The project is to be implemented in districts with high consumption of kerosene on "area...

-The Hindustan Times   New Delhi: Forecasting the June-to-September rains, which account for three-quarters of India's annual rainfall, is becoming tougher. Last year, six states had to declare droughts despite predictions of a normal monsoon. Although India is scaling up its prediction techniques, including joint Indo-American forecasting under a bilateral agreement, too little is understood about how pollution and rising temperatures are impacting the monsoon. But new research shows that they are surely...

-The Hindustan Times   Kokrajhar (Assam): Nearly two years after deadly ethnic riots led to more than 100 deaths and displaced over 4.5 lakh people in Kokrajhar region of Assam, fear and tension prevails. Communities - especially, the Bodos and Bengali-speaking immigrant Muslims - living in close proximity across the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District appear to be completely polarised. In the small village of Joyma a few kilometres from Gosaigaon, around 150 Bengali-speaking...

A new report entitled: The World of Organic Agriculture: Statistics and Emerging Trends 2014 by Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) says that out of the 19 lakh organic producers in the entire world during 2012, nearly 6 lakh (i.e. roughly 32 percent) are from India (see below figure 1 and link). But a grim fact is that while the rest...