The Green India Mission, part of India's plan to fight climate change, proposed to double the area being taken up for afforestation and eco-restoration over the next decade. The first draft of the Mission, released on Monday, projects an ambitious target of 20 million hectares by 2020, at a cost of Rs. 44,000 crore. Public Consultations will be undertaken across the country from June 11, following which the draft will be...

THERE is a need for a large-scale publicly funded biotechnology programme in agriculture to end the monopoly of the private sector, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has said in view of widespread opposition to genetically-modified Bt brinjal. “I think public sector investment in strategic areas particularly in genetically modified (GM) agriculture is absolutely crucial for instilling public confidence because of the seed issue. We don’t want the GM food to end...

TRIBUTE On May 5 it will be six months since Prabhat Joshi left us. Remembering that towering figure in the field of journalism on this occasion, we are carrying the following tribute which brings out yet another facet of his personality. It was written quite sometime ago but could not be published earlier due to unavoidable reasons. Prabhash Joshi was one of the most important journalists and thinkers of our times. He...

Is the Indian government bargaining away the rights of millions across the world to essential drugs supplied by India, hailed as the pharmacy of the developing world, in the name of free trade with the European Union (EU)? That's a fear being expressed by civil society groups in the developing world. Commerce minister Anand Sharma vehemently denies such a possibility, claiming that the free trade agreement (FTA) under negotiation with...

Beginning 1 July, details of projects, minutes of board meetings and a whole lot else will be made public under a disclosure policy. “India’s right to information law is an inspiration for us,” says Isabel Guerrero, the Bank’s Vice-President for South Asia and one of the architects of the disclosure policy. The policy itself is new, but the process has been on, with voices like Guerrero’s within the Bank pressing...