A new report entitled: The World of Organic Agriculture: Statistics and Emerging Trends 2014 by Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) says that out of the 19 lakh organic producers in the entire world during 2012, nearly 6 lakh (i.e. roughly 32 percent) are from India (see below figure 1 and link). But a grim fact is that while the rest...

-Bloomberg   Actual rainfall may be five per cent more or less than the prediction The monsoon in India, which provides about 70 per cent of annual rainfall, will be normal this year amid forecasts for the emergence of an El Niño that previously caused droughts, government officials said. Rain could be 96 per cent of a 50-year average of 89 cm (35 inches) in the June-September period, said two officials with direct knowledge...

-Deccan Herald   Barely emerging out of the shadows of freak weather, the warning of a weak monsoon will push millions of farmers into dire straits. In the midst of all the noise and muck-slinging that dominates the election campaigns there is bad news on the horizon. No, I am not talking of the possibility of a hung Parliament where the numbers don't add up for any political front, but the possibility of...

-Live Mint   Instead of testing theoretical knowledge, the problem-solving tests examined how students could use their knowledge in practical situations New Delhi: Asian countries led by Singapore took the top seven spots in the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) report on problem solving capability among 15-year-old students, released by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Tuesday. "Students from Singapore and (South) Korea have performed best in the first...

-SocialProgressImperative.org The 2014 Social Progress Index reveals striking differences across countries in their social performance, highlights the very different strengths and weaknesses of individual countries, and provides concrete guidance for national policy agendas. The Index is the sum of three dimensions: Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Wellbeing, and Opportunity. Each dimension is made up of four equally weighted individual components scored on an objective scale from 0-100. This scale is determined by...