-The Indian Express The CWC has sent a strong note to Water Resources Minister Uma Bharati, complaining against the committee’s recommendations. The employees of the Central Water Commission (CWC) have slammed the Mihir Shah panel, calling its recommendations on water reforms “conceptually flawed”, “anti-development” and something that will result in “disaster of unmatched proportions”. The seven-member expert panel, headed by Mihir Shah, former member of the erstwhile Planning Commission, was appointed by the...

-Frontline Medecins Sans Frontieres warns that the free or regional trade agreements that are being negotiated, which seek to strengthen current patent regimes, are a potential threat to the developing world’s access to life-saving drugs, which it sources mostly from India. WHEN NELSON MANDELA’S GOVERNMENT passed the Medicines and Related Substances Control Act in 1997 to make medicines more accessible to the poor, 39 big pharmaceutical companies filed law suits in...

-NDTV KOLKATA: As if the death of 19 tribal children in Odisha due to malnutrition was not bad enough, a minister in Naveen Patnaik’s government has now blamed the disaster on the large size of tribal families. “Each tribal family has 8-9 children. There’s no family planning and therefore the malnutrition deaths,” Minister of Women and Child Welfare Usha Devi said. “They also won’t come down from their village in the hill,” she...

-Down to Earth Severe dry spells in Indian forests have hit the livelihood of more than 100 million people. But India simply does not acknowledge this drought For more than five months, residents of Jabarra village have been foraging the forests for minor forest produce (MFP). The forest in Chhattisgarh’s Dhamtari district is abundant with more than 200 types of forest produce and the district is known as Asia’s biggest trading...

-PTI It said that changes in settlement patterns, urbanisation and socio-economic status in Asia have increased exposure to climate extremes. United Nations: Nearly 40 million Indians will be at risk from rising sea levels by 2050, with people in Mumbai and Kolkata having the maximum exposure to coastal Flooding in future due to rapid urbanisation and economic growth, according to a UN environment report. The Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-6): Regional Assessments said that...