-TheWire.in Swaraj Abhiyan founder Prashant Bhushan discusses the Essar tapes and other scams, the role of whistleblowers and his fallout with Arvind Kejriwal. Celebrated lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan has just notched up another victory with the Supreme Court-appointed panel decreeing there was prima facie evidence that former CBI director Ranjit Sinha had attempted to influence the investigation into the coal block allocation scam under the then UPA government. The court’s observation was based...

-India Water Portal How paddy grew in popularity in Punjab and continues to steal the show, thanks to lack of alternatives for farmers. Take the roads of Punjab during the monsoon and you will find most fields turned into pools of water. It’s mainly the water pulled out from the underground vault to support the kharif crop of paddy. Neither a native plant nor suited to the agro-climatic region, paddy has...

-The Hindu India needs to formulate adaptation strategies to global warming at the State level and demonstrate if and how these could be meaningful for the country as a whole Kicking off to a warm start, the first few months of 2016 were close to 1.5° Celsius higher than average global temperatures for at least 10,000 years prior to the 19th century. At the Paris Conference of Parties (COP-21) last December, world...

-The Indian Express Price and technology-led incentives alone will not help boost pulses and oilseeds production in the country. Indian agriculture is governed by an impossible trinity or “trilemma” that requires it to meet three simultaneous objectives — global competitiveness, social inclusiveness and environmental sustainability — each often at odds with the other two. Official policy has largely tilted towards supporting the first two goals, with token, if not grudging, acknowledgement of...

-The Hindu Widespread chewing, legendary paan shops and a ‘so-what’ attitude trump disease concerns. Chennai: Union Health Minister J. P. Nadda promised concerned members in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday that he would advise all States to ban spitting in public. He was reassuring several MPs led by K.T.S Tulsi, who expressed worry that “the great Indian spit” was causing many communicable diseases. Yet, most municipal laws already prohibit spitting and prescribe penalties....