-Deccan Herald Farming Syed Ghani Khan's farm stands unique with a verdant tapestry of 700 paddy varieties and 120 types of mango. This distinct ecosystem is the result of a farmer's constant effort with constructive involvement of his family, writes Anitha Pailoor, against the backdrop of the United Nations declaring 2014 as the year of family farming This is Nazar Bath collected from the tribal people of Maharashtra. They sow this unique...

-The Business Standard A quick recap of the intensely fractured debate on GM crops and what the pro & anti arguments are. After nearly a decade of opposition, Environment Minister Veerappa Moily is finally expected to rule in favour of the contentious GM or genetically modified food crops in India. The Economic Times reports that this will "pave the way for the government to submit an affidavit in the Supreme Court agreeing...

-BBC A survey done earlier this year shows that public facilities in the poorest regions of India have steadily expanded, improving the lives of people there, writes development economist Jean Dreze. Once upon a time, not so long ago, public facilities in the poorest districts of India were few and far between. Most people were left to their own devices and they lived in the shadow of hunger, insecurity and exploitation, with no...

-IPS News Bhubaneswar: More than a month after Cyclone Phailin battered Orissa, tribes in the eastern Indian coastal state are still feeling its wrath. Besides the damage to their homes and hearths, it has also meant a loss of their traditional food. "Calamities like Cyclone Phailin affect all equally, but the tribes are far more vulnerable to the impact of calamities because of lesser resilience," Special Relief Commissioner P.K. Mahapatra tells IPS. This...

-The Hindu     Toll from foot-and-mouth disease reaches 1,485, mostly in south Karnataka Bangalore: The steep death toll among cattle from foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) could have been exacerbated by an unusually heavy rainfall this monsoon, even as an inefficient vaccination programme left thousands of animals vulnerable to the disease. While FMD (a viral infection affecting animals with ‘cloven hooves' such as cattle, deer and wild boar) is not fatal by itself, a secondary infection...