-The Indian Express A senior state official said that the objective would be on environmental training focused on protecting water resources, preventing deforestation, safer pesticide use, and mitigating impacts of extreme climatic condition on farm produce Mumbai: After facing three severe drought spell in four years, Maharashtra has decided to embrace climate-smart agriculture. On August 10, the state cabinet gave its nod for an ambitious project of training farmers in 4,900 villages...

-The Hindu Business Line The draft laws do not take a holistic view of surface and groundwater management. Nor are institutional issues spelt out The draft National Water Framework Bill 2016 was placed in the public domain for comments in end-May by the ministry of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation. Around the same time, the ministry also placed the Model Bill for the Conservation, Protection, Regulation and Management of Groundwater 2016...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Air and dust pollution from road traffic may be a threat to Kashmir's silk sector, already dogged by the lack of cocoon-processing infrastructure, declining production and farmers' abandonment of silkworm-rearing. Scientists at the University of Kashmir, Srinagar, and the Central Sericulture Research Institute, Pampore, have warned that traffic pollution may significantly reduce food consumption by silkworms and their capacity to spin the fibre. Field observations suggest that silkworms do...

-The Indian Express The Ministry notified and put up the draft on its website on May 10, inviting public feedback over a two-month window. New Delhi: More than three quarters of the Environment Ministry’s Environment Supplement Plan (ESP) — around 2,900 words of the 3,850-word draft — is a direct lift from the Supplemental Environmental Projects Policy (SEP) document adopted by the United States in March 2015. The draft notification proposes to allow...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's annual toll of premature deaths from air pollution is likely to rise to 1.7 million over the next two decades despite planned initiatives to lower power sector and transport emissions, says a study that highlights the need for more action. Released today by the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), the study cautions that rising incomes, urbanisation and industrialisation are raising energy consumption in India and worsening air...