-Economic and Political Weekly The cultivation of geneticallymodified crops, especially food crops, is not just a domestic issue; it has an impact on global food trade as well. Sukhpal Singh (sukhpal@iimahd.ernet.in) is at the Centre for Management in Agriculture, IIM, Ahmedabad. There is no doubt that the application of biotechnology can lead to yield improvement, cost cutting and lower crop losses, besides providing more processable raw materials and designer products. That is why...

-The Hindu In Indo-Gangetic plains there may be a 50 per cent fall in wheat area New Delhi: Rural poverty in parts of Asia could be exacerbated due to negative impacts from climate change on rice production, and a general increase in food prices and the cost of living, says the report of working group two of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report. Launched on Thursday, the report Climate...

-The Third Pole Cities and villages in India will soon run out of potable water if current trends continue, warns senior water official India's groundwater tables are plunging at an alarming rate with reserves in some states dwindling to critical levels, according to the latest report from the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) - the apex body under the Ministry of Water Resources. Over 16% of the country's groundwater resources are ‘over-exploited' -...

-The Tribune Agbiotechnology is presented in many forms - the most common being that it will solve world hunger. To reinforce this claim, there is an interesting word play at work. Agbiotechnology is referred to as the ‘Evergreen Revolution' or the 'Gene Revolution' but never genetic engineering, which is its correct name. Both Evergreen Revolution and Gene Revolution are deliberately coined terms which attempt to link Agbiotech with the Green Revolution....

-The Economic Times Dinkar Patil, a farmer from Buldhana district in Vidarbha, Maharashtra, normally cultivates cotton on his 13-acre farm land. This year, however, he has skipped the cotton crop and opted for soyabean and tur dal. "The rainfall started late. I did not cultivate cotton because of the delayed rains and the huge increase in cost of cultivation of the crop," said Patil. He is expecting a fall of about...