-The Hindu Business Line Apart from endemic policy concerns, the promotion of palm oil has downsides The edible oilseed production has occupied centre-stage in the discourse on Indian agriculture after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent announcement of the ₹11,040-crore National Mission on Edible Oil-Oil Palm (NMEO-OP), to have self-sufficiency in edible oils, particularly palm oil. There are two reasons for this announcement. First, the recent skyrocketing of edible oil prices has irked the...

-IndiaSpend.com To set up big commercial, tourism and shipping projects in the islands, the Centre has taken measures that could affect the region's unique biodiversity and ethnicity New Delhi: The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are often pictured as a lush, tropical tourist paradise. But recent government moves may strip the protections that the ecologically and ethnically significant archipelago enjoys, in order to make way for big business, shipping and tourism projects, documents...

-Telangana Today With NBAGR recognition, the breed’s popularity has soared, and with it the fortunes of cattle farmers what with a pair now fetching Rs 70,000 from the earlier Rs 40,000. Hyderabad: Good times are here for Telangana’s own cattle breed, Poda Thurupu, with recognition from the National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (NBAGR) seeing the breed’s popularity soaring, and with it, the fortunes of the cattle farmers and breeders of Amrabad...

-Down to Earth The largest losses, mostly in forests, occurred in the Sundaland, Indo-Burma and Mesoamerica hotspots, all in developing countries Top biodiversity hotspots of the world lost 148 million hectares (mha) of land to agriculture and urbanisation between 1992 and 2015, a global analysis released October 30, 2020, by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said. Most of the land lost — nearly 40 per cent, or 54 mha — was...

-Down to Earth The time to put off the inevitable question about human relationship to nature is long past. Our assumption that we can control and modify nature without repercussions is a fallacy Lofty mountains that touch the azure skies, gentle hills clothed in dense tropical forests and evergreen valleys — the Western Ghats nurture a variety of ecosystems not found in any other part of the world. Spread over 164,280 square kilometres,...