The ‘Aichi Target' adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at its Nagoya conference could not have come at a more appropriate time. The journal Science recently published a study by Michael Hoffmann and his colleagues titled “The Impact of Conservation on the Status of the World's Vertebrates.” This presents depressing data on threatened species. The scientists conclude that four important factors — agricultural expansion, logging, over-exploitation, and invasive...

In its technology statement, Aadhaar, the massive Government of India project that seeks to enrol citizens, puts on record its commitment to using open technological standards. However, the government of Kerala — the only State that mandates the use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in governance — recently found that the client enrolment software used is only compatible with Windows, the proprietary operating system owned by Microsoft. The Unique...

'The creaky PDS will not be able to do the job.'  The recommendations of the National Advisory Council for the National Food Security Act, made after much discussion and many revisions, cast the net wide to include 75 per cent of the country’s population within the purview of the scheme.It is the most ambitious  food entitlement scheme conceived anywhere in the world and the conceptual and implementation problems are very daunting....

Block vehicular and railway traffic across Punjab, demand relaxation of paddy procurement norms Various factions of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) and organisations of landless labourers blocked the railway traffic at Moga and ten other locations in Punjab on Friday. They also halted the vehicular traffic on many highways, demanding relaxation in the procurement norms of paddy. The protesters claimed that adverse weather conditions had affected the quality of grains, and said...

Even as the state sugar commissionerate has predicted a surplus sugarcane crop this year, farmers have a different take. They allege that this is a “ploy by co-operatives and the commissionerate” so that defunct sugar mills can be started again. Also, sugar prices are likely to see a sharp fall in the wake of the forecast. As per the official figures, Maharashtra is likely to produce around 8.5 million tonnes of...