Since early November, Delhi and large parts of North India have been enveloped in a thick, grey smog, sparking concerns and a debate on what is leading to the rising levels of air pollution. A January 2012 paper by Ridhima Gupta from the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi is drawing linkages between the quality of air in the capital and agricultural practices during harvest season on farms in the neighbouring state...

-The Times of India NAGPUR: Talodhi, a village in Chandrapur district, is emerging as a centre for 'rice breeding' in literal sense. Two retired agricultural scientists from city, a big farming family from the village, the Poshattiwars, and some local farmers have joined hands in developing new genetically pure varieties from locally available varieties. It would not be an exaggeration if Poshattiwars and their team of farmers are called 'farmer scientists' as...

-The Times of India SURI: A clash between farmers and policemen at the site of a mining project in Birbhum left 37 people injured on Tuesday and conjured up images of Nandigram, opening a new frontier in Bengal's bloody land battles. The protesters alleged police opened fire when they refused to let them take away earth-moving equipment brought in by a coal mining company. The equipment was stranded at the site after...

-NDTV Hyderabad: The rains triggered by Cyclone Nilam which crossed the Andhra Pradesh coast near Chennai on October 31 have battered the state, claiming 29 lives. Normal life has been thrown out of gear in the region and hundreds of villages remained inundated. In East and West Godavari districts, famous as the rice bowl of the state, standing paddy and cotton crops over lakhs of acres were damaged. Officials said they were making...

-The Economic Times Retail sector liberalisation has been revived and included in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's package of big-bang reforms announced recently. This was to be expected as an element of the package since the influential minister Jairam Ramesh, who has access to Sonia Gandhi and is identified with her NGO-dominated set of advisers whose knowledge of economics is outweighed by their enthusiasm, had already announced his conversion to retail sector...