-The Economic Times   The Supreme Court on Friday refused to ease its three-month old ban on the manufacture, sale and use of pesticide endosulfan despite an expert committee report favouring lifting the restrictions for all states except the worst-affected Kerala and Karnataka. However, a bench of Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar agreed to consider the industry's request for permission to export the...

-The Deccan Herald   Agriculture Minister Umesh Katti has declared that the Government will not allow trials of genetically modified (GM) crops in the State. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday in Bangalore, the Minister said Karnataka had opposed Bt brinjal, and if media reports on Bt maize and Bt paddy trials in Bijapur and Koppal were true, the Government would oppose them as well. Katti said the State is firmly opposed to testing, research...

-The Hindu   The Coalition for GM-Free India has expressed concern over the way field trials for genetically modified crops and seed production were being allowed in the State. At a national meet here, the Coalition wanted the government to disallow these trials as was done by States like Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Chhattisgarh. Cautioning against any move to revoke the requirement of State's no objection certificate (NOC) for any...

Rainfall during the remaining two months of the monsoon season is likely to be 10 per cent below normal, weather scientists said today, predicting monsoon behaviour that they say “has the potential to hurt crops in some places”. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said rainfall over India during August and September is likely to be 90 per cent of the long period average, after a copious 111 per cent rainfall in...

The well being dug under the Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme at a cost of Rs 2.63 lakh at Gutjera village in Khunti district could not withstand the first spell of monsoon rain. On July 18, its walls collapsed, and so did the dreams of Shravan Mahato of reaping “three crops a year”. His isn’t the only well to have collapsed under the first brush of monsoon. Government estimates...