-PTI KARAIKUDI (TN): Disbursal of agricultural loans has been on the rise under the UPA regime and the target for this fiscal has been fixed at Rs 5.75 lakh crore, an increase of Rs 1,00,000 crore over the previous year, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram said today. 'We have set a target of disbursing Rs 5,75,000 crore (loans) during this year (2012-13),' he said inaugurating the new building of Rural Training Centre...

-The United Nations More consolidated efforts to combat the threat of climate change and counter its ripple effects on global food security are needed amid an intensifying global drought and increasing temperatures worldwide, the United Nations declared today. “climate change is projected to increase the frequency, intensity, and duration of droughts, with impacts on many sectors, in particular food, water, and energy,” said World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Michel Jarraud in a...

-PTI Environment Ministry has constituted a high-level Working Group headed by eminent space scientist and Planning Commission member K Kasturirangan to examine the Western Ghats ecology expert panel report "in a holistic and multidisciplinary fashion". The nine-member Group will examine the Madhav Gadgil committee report released recently "in a holistic and multidisciplinary fashion keeping in view the comments received from the concerned state governments, central ministries, stakeholders", the Ministry said. The panel will...

-The Indian Express The exodus to the Northeast, perhaps the biggest mass displacement in peacetime, reads like the dark side of the Arab Spring or the reverse of a flash mob. The social and SMS media, which accumulate forces for positive change, were leveraged to spread rumours and disperse minorities by the fictitious threat of violence. And the response is totally inadequate. Social media shifted the balance of power from governments and...

-The Hindu For the fourth time in the past 11 years, India is heading for a ‘meteorological’ drought India is heading for a drought, in meteorological terms, for the fourth time in the past 11 years. The previous droughts during this period were in 2002, 2004 and 2009. A meteorological drought, in the sense that atmospheric scientists typically use the term, occurs when a monsoon ends with nationwide rainfall during the season falling...