-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...

-The Telegraph Nagpur: The Maharashtra government has given a slew of private companies permission to conduct field trials of genetically modified crops at state agriculture universities' farms, rejecting its dissenting agriculture minister's suggestion for a public debate first. Before this, no Indian state had allowed field trials of GM crops since October last year, when a Supreme Court-appointed expert panel recommended a 10-year moratorium on such trials - though the court has...

-The Hindu On the day that Veerappa Moily took over reins, the Environment Ministry eased Environmental clearance norms for select industries, including brick kiln owners and river sand miners. On December 24, the Ministry took a decision to exempt a slew of different types of industrial and mining projects from either providing Environmental impact assessment reports or holding public hearings when they are approved by the state government. Categorising these set of...

-The Hindu India's long-standing legacies of caste, gender and class antagonism replicate on campuses as well. As higher education moves forward, it does so on these social cleavages The brutal sexual attack on a young woman in Delhi, in 2012, and a savage attack on a girl student of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on its campus this year are just two examples of extreme violence that have shocked the nation. Acts of...

-Outlook Getting down to business soon after taking over, Environment Minister M Veerappa Moily today directed a review of a controversial report on Western Ghats which had earned his predecessor Jayanthi Natarajan the wrath of political parties and religious groups from Kerala. Moily, who took charge as Environment Minister today, asked six Western Ghats range states-- Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat to examine various recommendations of the High Level...