-Hindustan Times Mumbai: Maharashtra government is finally waking up to the effects of climate change. Reeling under crippling water scarcity, it has decided to set up Maharahstra’s first climate change study centre. The idea of a centre was prompted by the successive weather eccentricities that the state has suffered in consecutive years --- drought, excess rainfall, hailstorms and drought again. The centre will set up in Aurangabad, the heart of the state’s driest and...

-Business Standard India’s growth in agriculture and allied activities has struggled to reach the targeted four per cent average a year in the first three years of the 12th five-year Plan because of a host of factors. The below-average farm growth is widely expected to deepen the crisis in the farm sector. In an interview with Sanjeeb Mukherjee, newly-appointed member of NITI Aayog and eminent agriculture economist Ramesh Chand  said over-reliance...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A joint study by Indian and Pakistani doctors has detected abnormally high blood sugar levels in six out of 10 adults in cities, indicating a "frighteningly" higher prevalence of diabetes or its precursor, pre-diabetes, than observed before. The doctors, who screened 13,720 people aged over 20 in Chennai, Delhi and Karachi, have warned that the high incidence of pre-diabetes suggests millions more urban South Asians are likely to...

-Business Standard Cabinet note soon on Rs 1,800-cr investment over 5 years to boost sector, skills To push fish production, the Centre is formulating a programme to tap water reservoirs and neglected water bodies such as wetlands for breeding through modern technologies. The programme, part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of a Blue Revolution, entails Rs 1,800 crore over the next five years, much lower than what was envisaged by a working...

-The Indian Express Government’s actions on the commodity reveals it is ignorant of how a market economy is run With each passing day this year, agriculture seems to be sagging and so is the Indian farmer. Deficit monsoon rains appear to be the trigger. Although rains offered some respite to Marathwada, the situation in India’s largest agri-state, Uttar Pradesh, has gone from bad to worse. Last year’s drought, with monsoon rains falling...