-The Business Standard Against nodal ministry's protest, under PMO guidance, MoEF prepares to largely remove need for gram sabha agreement to use or give away forest land The central government is set to dilute the rights of tribals and other forest-dwelling communities, doing away with the present legal need for their consent while handing over their forest land to industry in large parts of the country. Business Standard has reviewed documents that detail...

-The Telegraph A swathe of land stretching from the Himalayan foothills to the Indo-Gangetic plains has experienced a steady and significant decrease in water stored in lakes, reservoirs, rivers and as groundwater over the past decade, government scientists have said. Scientists at the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting here and their collaborators in other institutions have found that the terrestrial water storage (TWS) - a measure of surface and underground...

-The Telegraph Saharsa: Farmers in the Purnea and Kosi divisions will go to school from next month to learn about the latest agricultural techniques and how to reap maximum benefit from their produce. As many as 210 farmers' schools will come up in the state, including Purnea and Saharsa, for which the government has allocated Rs 1.8 crore. Twenty-nine of the schools will come up in Khagaria. Agriculture director Dharmendra Kumar said: "These...

-The Times of India A paragraph buried in the US-India joint statement, which talks of establishing an annual high-level Intellectual Property (IP) working group as part of the Trade Policy Forum, has made health activists across the world apprehensive that the Modi government might be bending to US pressure to change its patent laws. Several health policy experts and activists have issued statements urging India not to give in to US...

-Business Today   India's agricultural output this year is expected to be lower than in recent years because of delayed and deficient rainfall and lesser sown area, the government has said. Erratic rains and dry spells in several parts of the country have impacted the production of crops. Due to coverage of lesser area and low productivity, the production of most crops is expected to be lower than the record levels achieved last...