-IPS News World Water Week recently concluded in Stockholm with a special emphasis on the linkages between water and food security. From the worst drought in 56 years in the United States Midwest, to the Karnataka’s drought in India, to the protracted drought in the Sahel region of West Africa, we have also seen how in our globalised world the nexus between lack of water and food security in one corner of...

-The Hindu ICAR Director-General says India needs to produce up to 2 million tonnes of rice to feed the teeming millions India, a country that comes second after China in rice cultivation with 44 million hectares under rice, plans to increase the acreage under hybrid rice to 5 million hectares from the current 2 million hectares.   Research Goals Speakers at the 6 International Hybrid Rice Symposium here on Monday said the country needed to...

-The Hindu Vaccine’s overall efficacy in a recent trial is ‘lower than expected’ The just concluded Phase IIb (proof-of-concept) dengue vaccine trial against all the four virus types (serotypes) that cause dengue has not only shown an unexpectedly low efficacy of 30.2 per cent but has also challenged many well-established hypotheses and ideas. The trial was conducted in about 4,000 children in the age group 4 and 11 in the dengue endemic district...

-India Together All the increased budgets for education in the country may not amount to much, if the States don't move the money fast enough to the intended uses, which is not happening now. Himanshu Upadhyaya reports.  The Comptroller and Auditor General's recent performance review of elementary education in Tripura has once again brought to our attention prolonged delays in release of funds meant for schools. The performance review, of accounts spanning...

-Frontline A study finds that institutional support alone cannot help reduce maternal mortality in India.  THE high rate of maternal mortality in India has been a cause for national concern, especially on account of the focus on reaching the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Although there is a growing realisation that it will be difficult to meet the MDG targets by that deadline, there is a renewed interest in the...