It is potentially a game-changer so far as rules of media reporting are concerned. The Supreme Court on Monday virtually slapped a ban on source-based news stories in matters under investigation, in an order which can alter the journalism landscape. The provocation for the severe order, already being seen as a gag order, was violation of the apex court's two-year-old ruling asking newspapers and TV channels to exercise restraint in...

To millions of Indians, development is dreadful word aimed at denying them even source of sustenance Why is state's vision of development at such great odds with the people it purports to develop? The Supreme Court has expressed concern that the path of development by depriving landowners of their land seemed to give rise to insurgency and political extremism which, along with terrorism, are supposed to be the three gravest threats to...

Unfettered coal mining is causing unchecked underground fires that threaten human habitation and the environment, writes geologist Dr Nitish Priyadarshi. The haunting inscription that marks the gates of hell in Dante's Inferno could well be true for Jharkhand. For, the underground fires that have been raging in the coalfields of this state over several years are now beginning to engulf its thickly inhabited areas as well. An underground mine fire that has...

Amflora is a kind of miracle potato: it is precious to the starch industry.  Johan Bergstrom, a blond and boyish man of 31, who farms here with his father, reached into the dark, soft soil and extricated a tennis-ball-size potato, holding it gently so as not to snap off any of a half-dozen white shoots that were growing out of the potato's eyes. He advised against tasting the potato, whose...

“If one goes through the agricultural production history in the last six decades, the number of farmers opting out of agriculture, suicides of hundreds of farmers in the past 10 years, and shrinking cultivation lands are ample proof that our agriculture policy is totally wrong,” says Mr. R. Kulandaisamy a progressive farmer and liquid bio-fertilizer producer called Tari Biotech in Thanjavur. “Though policy makers and certain sections of the scientific fraternity...