-Outlook Chennai: Attempting to capitalise on 300 clear sunny days available in the state annually, Tamil Nadu government today unveiled a new solar energy policy, envisaging to produce over 3000 MW of power, exclusively from solar power, in the next three years. Christened as 'Tamil Nadu Solar Energy Policy 2012,' the new initiative of the Jayalalithaa government, with a slew of encouraging features, finds opportunity in the rapidly declining solar power costs...

Rising corn prices in the United States brought about by biofuel mandates have cost developing countries 6.6 billion dollars over the past six years, says a study by Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University (GDAE).  Net Food Importing Developing Countries, among the most vulnerable to food price increases, incurred ethanol-related costs of $2.1 billion, the study concludes. (See highlights and the links below). The recent spike in world food prices...

-Outlook Could scientists have got the impacts of climate change on food supply wildly wrong? I believe we might have made a mistake: a mistake whose consequences, if I am right, would be hard to overstate. I think the forecasts for world food production could be entirely wrong. Food prices are rising again, partly because of the damage done to crops in the northern hemisphere by ferocious weather. In the US, Russia...

-The Economic Times MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India has revised the definition of priority sector to include corporates engaged in agriculture and allied activities, and amended the limits for certain categories. In a circular issued to commercial banks on Wednesday, the RBI has clarified that loans to corporates, including companies formed by individual farmers, partnership firms and co-operatives of farmers directly engaged in agriculture and allied activities, will now be considered...

-The Hindu The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted the ban on tourist activities in core areas of tiger reserve forests. This follows Additional Solicitor-General Indira Jaising’s submission that on October 15 the government notified the revised guidelines for the 41 tiger reserves to be followed by States. A Bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar said: “This court passed an order on July 24 that till final guidelines are issued, core areas...