-The Hindustan Times The entire framework for monitoring environmental compliance is being dismantled systematically. This is a process that actually began with the UPA government, which replaced the feisty environment minister Jairam Ramesh with the more pliant Jayanthi Natarajan. With industry lobbies still crying wolf, she too made way for Veerappa Moily, the petroleum and natural gas minister, without the UPA seeing anything contradictory in someone holding both those responsibilities. In just a month,...

-Financial Chronicle The United Nations declared 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) to recognise the importance of family farming in reducing poverty and improving global food security. According to the UN, the IYFF aims to promote new development policies at national and regional levels that will help small holder and family farmers eradicate hunger through small scale sustainable agricultural production. Family farming involves about 500 million families consisting...

-Outlook The PM would do well to incorporate the Lok Nayak's convictions and what he stood for and not ape alien models to make India's villages as mere markets and show-pieces Narendra Modi was different from other Prime Ministers while addressing the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on 15 August 2014. He spoke of governing India through sahmati (consensus) not bahumati (majority) and sought the cooperation of people and...

-The Telegraph In her recent book, Green Wars, the environmental journalist Bahar Dutt, writes: "The editor of a leading media house, everytime I pitched a green story, would invariably complain: ‘Environmentalism is stalling growth; all I am interested in is double-digit growth for this country.'" The idea that environmental protection and economic progress are at odds is widely held among India's elite. It is shared by newspaper editors, economists, businessmen, and, not...

-The Guardian A UN working group has devised a final draft of targets to succeed the millennium development goals. What do you think of the 17 proposals? The UN working group responsible for crafting the sustainable development goals (SDGs) has handed down its final proposal, adding a goal to address domestic and global inequality. The recommendations include 17 goals and 169 targets to be achieved by 2030. The list includes a reworking of...