-Tehelka The new biotechnology Bill will allow biotech firms to tamper with our food In March, US President Barack Obama signed the HR 933 continuing resolution - popularly known as the Monsanto Protection Act - that effectively divests the federal courts of their constitutional power to stop the planting or sale of genetically modified (GM) seeds and crops regardless of the health and environmental consequences. In other words, whether you like...

-The Hindu Instead of opening a debate on the Gadgil panel's report on the Western Ghats, the government has chosen to sideline and replace it with another by an alternate group This is a challenging time in India's development history where a number of tenets of environmental governance are being questioned by the imperative of growth. Environmental governance in India is under assault, and is thus in need of both fresh thinking,...

-The United Nations The United Nations today launched the Zero Hunger Challenge in Asia and the Pacific, calling on governments, farmers, scientists, business, civil society and consumers to work together to end hunger in the region where the majority of the world's undernourished people live. "Sustainable development and inclusive growth will not happen on empty stomachs," said Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the...

-Frontline It is the goal of social revolution that connects the aam aadmi to the judiciary and to its highest institution, the Supreme Court of India. By Prof. G. MOHAN GOPAL WHAT should be the appropriate mea-sure of the relationship between the apex court of a country and its common people? Should an apex court be evaluated by who invokes its jurisdiction, from which area and for what purpose? Is an apex...

-Outlook Development activities including thermal power projects, mining and other polluting industries should not be allowed in a 60,000 sq km ecologically sensitive "natural landscape" of Western Ghats, a mountainous range that passes through six states, a Government panel said today. In its report, the 10-member high-level working group, headed by eminent scientist K Kasturirangan, has not recommended any regulatory mechanism for the remaining 96,000 sq km area of the Western...