-Outlook   Fear of torture in custody is widely prevalent among people across the world though respondents in many countries, including India, felt that the practice can sometimes be justified, a survey by Amnesty International (AI) has found. A new global survey by the human rights watchdog covering more than 21,000 people in 21 countries reveals that the fear of custodial torture spans all continents, AI said in a release today. According to AI,...

-The Guardian   Tamil Nadu farmer produces bumper crop four times larger than average using system of rice intensification An Indian farmer has set a state and possibly a national record for growing rice using a neglected method of cultivation that has been dismissed by academic researchers and received little financial backing from agribusiness. According to Jaisingh Gnanadurai, joint director of agriculture in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, farmer S Sethumadhavan from...

-The Hindu   Forest cover loss has occurred at a period when area under jhum cultivation is declining, suggesting that the land use policy has been counterproductive to forests Two spectacular bamboo dances, one celebrated, the other reviled, enliven the mountains of Mizoram. In the colourful Cheraw, Mizo girls dance as boys clap bamboo culms at their feet during the annual Chapchar Kut festival. The festival itself is linked to the other dance:...

-Down to Earth NTFPS-EP is a network working with adivASIs on ecosystem conservation, advocacy and livelihoods When we shift the focus from the timber a forest is usually valued for to the non-timber products it offers, a very different world opens up. Wild fruit, honey, gums and resin, fish and crab, fibre and flowers, birds' eggs and bush meat, and medicinal barks are only some of the products that a forest may...

-The United Nations More than three million deaths in 2012 were linked to alcohol with a steady increase in alcohol use among women, the United Nations health agency today reported calling on Governments to do more to prevent alcohol-related deaths and diseases. The "Global status report on alcohol and health 2014" found that alcohol consumption increases people's risk of developing more than 200 diseases including liver cirrhosis and some cancers, as well...