-The Business Standard   More, water levels in the reservoirs of southern India are below the 10-year average at 8.28 billion cubic metres As doubts mount over the impact of El Niño on the southwest monsoon season in 2014, India's preparedness to face a low rainfall situation seems to have improved in the past four-five years. However, there are many gaps to be plugged. For example, although the average water in major reservoirs across...

-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 Times of India   "Ma Ganga aur Benares se mera rishta purana hai," BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi said, pledging his intent to restore the Ganga to its original glory while campaigning in Varanasi. Plans to clean up the 2,500 km holy river too date back to older times -the first Ganga Action Plan was announced in 1986 - but activists claim the stretch flowing through Varanasi is in worse...

-The Indian Express   A new study on the Dal Lake could point the way in dealing with ecological challenges   A multi-dimensional group of experts from the Bangalore-based biodiversity and environment think tank, ATREE (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment), embarked on a wide-ranging study to save Srinagar's Dal Lake. The ATREE team of experts includes a water quality scientist, a hydrologist, a sociologist, an institutional management and governance expert and...

-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:...