-The Hindu Apprehensions of various sections must be allayed: M.S. Swaminathan UDHAGAMANDALAM (Tamil Nadu): In matters relating to genetically modified (GM) food crops, the government should ‘hasten cautiously,' said eminent Agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan. He was speaking on the sidelines of a visit to the Wheat Breeding Research Station of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) at Wellington, near here, on Tuesday. When asked about differences within the government over conducting field trials of GM...

-World Resources Institute India struggles with water scarcity, a problem that poses especially huge implications for the country's food security and rural livelihoods. The country has long-battled its scarcity issues through Watershed Development, a participatory approach to improve water management through afforestation and reforestation, sustainable land management, soil and water conservation, water-harvesting infrastructure, and social interventions. But while watershed development has been employed in communities throughout India, its potential long-term costs...

-The Hindu THANJAVUR (Tamil Nadu): G. Nammalvar (75), organic farming scientist and crusader, died at Pichinikadu village near Pattukottai on Monday night. Born at Elankadu village near Thiruvaiyaru in 1938, he graduated in agriculture from Annamamalai University. In 1963, he joined as an officer in the Agricultural Regional Research Centre, Kovilpatti. Later he served as an agronomist in Island Peace, an organisation founded by Nobel Laureate R.P. Dominic Pyre. All his life, he...

-Survival International Anthropologist Dr. Felix Padel works with the tribes of Odisha in eastern India, including the Dongria Kondh, for whom Survival International has campaigned for 10 years. Felix is the great great grandson of Charles Darwin and lives in a remote village in Odisha. In this interview, he talks to Survival about the Dongria Kondh's relationship to their mountains, their heroic struggle against Vedanta, Darwin's evolution theory and the experience...

-The Business Standard The Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee law allows mandis to remain in the grip of a middlemen cartel, with clear links to politicians who run the governments Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has, in effect, told chief ministers of party-ruled states that if food inflation is to be controlled, as many items as possible must be got out of the purview of the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act. For the time...