-The Economic Times Even as noisy MPs continued to demand a ban on cartoons of politicians in NCERT textbooks in Lok Sabha, a lone voice struck a different chord. National Conference MP from Baramulla Sharifullah Shariq said politicians should introspect instead of criticising the cartoons. "Except in rare cases where a cartoon denigrates leader like Nehru or Ambedkar, why banish political cartoons altogether ?" Shariq said. The NC leader said Kashmiri leaders, including...

Empower school principals to truly deliver education to India The Right to Education (RTE) law, and the subsequent Supreme Court judgment, has focused attention on the future of school education in India. The judgment on the provision that requires private schools to offer 25 per cent of their seats to economically weaker sections opens new opportunities for the poor, and that is welcome. But in our fiercely hierarchical society, class-conscious...

Veteran agricultural scientist and alumnus of Harvard and Berkeley Universities, Dr Peter Kenmore was in Mumbai for NABARD’s 30th anniversary lecture on ‘Future of Global Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities for India.’ This United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization India representative spoke to Yogesh Pawar on the current scenario in agriculture. Some excerpts: There’s a lot of churn over GM technology in India. At a time when the country is grappling with...

Countries in Asia and the Pacific must strike a balance between rising prosperity and rising emission as their success or failure will have repercussions worldwide, a latest report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has said. "The Asia-Pacific region must continue to grow economically to lift millions out of poverty, but it must also respond to climate change to survive. Growing first and cleaning up later is no longer an...

-DNA Vidarbha, hitherto associated with farmers’ suicide, has found place in the global map for an entirely different and refreshing reason. The region will host an annual WorldAgriculture Forum from 2012 onwards to address global agrarian crisis. This was announced by Prof MS Swaminathan, agricultural scientist, on Sunday at the end of the three-day Chennai Conclave of the Ramon Magsaysay Award winners. “More than 335 farmers from Vidarbha region have committed suicide...