-The Economic Times The state-run Rubber Board is turning to the rural employment guarantee programme to increase India's natural rubber output from the present 9 million tonne a year. With rising global demand for rubber, the board is keen to extend the area under cultivation. It has identified 400,000 hectare in the North East, 100,000 hectare in Odisha and 50,000 hectare each in Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh as areas with potential...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com Kozhikode: Dubai's agriculture minister recently chartered a flight to Kozhikode and, accompanied by a horticulture consultant, headed to the Agriculture Research Station (ARS) at Anakkayam nearby. There the minister, Abdulla Jassim Abdulla M Almarzooqi, placed orders for fruits, spices and ornamental plants. But on his mind was something bigger. He offered free visas and air tickets to the 100 members of the research station's agricultural army, which rather grandly goes...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Olive Ridley turtle populations mass nesting on Odisha's coast now appear stable after what seemed like alarming portents a decade ago, but new ports could pose fresh threats, a senior turtle biologist said today. The increasing numbers of turtles inadvertently caught by fishing trawlers and found dead on Odisha's beaches during the 1990s had led some scientists to suggest a sharp decline in the populations of Olive Ridley...

-The Times of India LUCKNOW: For the Akhilesh Yadav government, the burgeoning unemployment problem comes as a daunting challenge. The 66th round of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report puts the projection of unemployed youth in Uttar Pradesh in the age group of 15-35 at whopping 1 crore by the end of the ongoing 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17). They will be in addition to the backlog of around 32...

-The Business Standard Dehradun: The immediate aftermath of a disaster almost always brings out angry responses. The tragic incident in Uttarakhand is no exception. Many experts, who belong to the "I told you so" camp, have come out with their own causal analysis of the tragedy. While town planners are blaming the rapid expansion of Construction Activities, naturalists are of the view that the disaster is nature's way of restoring balance...