-India Today Once the government gives final approval, it will be another three years before farmers can begin commercial cultivation using GM mustard seeds Approval for the environmental release of genetically modified (GM) mustard—Dhara Mustard Hybrid-11 (DMH-11)—across India has not come a day too soon. The GM crops regulator, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), had cleared GM mustard in 2017 but the Indian government raised questions and asked for more studies,...

-The Telegraph A pan India survey of media consumption by the Lokniti programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, compiled on the basis of responses from 19 states elicits answer The post-truth era is, expectedly, marked by a discerning erosion of public trust in sources of information. Mass media — both Traditional and new-age avatars — has borne the brunt of this mistrust. And for good reasons too. Social...

-PTI/ The Hindu Despite the legal deterrent in place, people in many parts of the city started bursting crackers by dusk A large number of high-decibel firecrackers thundered throughout Deepavali night on Monday as people in Delhi flouted the ban imposed on these by the city government. Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai last week said bursting firecrackers in the national capital on Deepavali will attract a jail term of up to six months...

-The Telegraph Radhakamal Mukerjee: an ecological pioneer In 1922, a professor at Lucknow University named Radhakamal Mukerjee published a book called Principles of Comparative Economics. Reading the book one hundred years later, I was struck by the attention it paid to the impact of the natural environment on the social and economic life of Indian villages. Mukerjee was perhaps the first Indian scholar to recognise the vital importance of common property resources...

-Newsclick.in The Van Gujjars are among a few surviving transhumant pastoral communities worldwide. They are a rarity in that they are one of the few Muslim Tribals who have survived as nomads to the present day. Eighty-six Families from Silan, a Van Gujjar settlement in Shivpuri Range, Tehri Garhwal, have filed their claims under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 and further submitted them...