-Livemint.com Model will allow India next year to contribute for the first time to annual report of global climate change panel New Delhi: India has a new and improved climate prediction model, which will help make more accurate long-range forecasts of the erratic monsoon and allow scientists to better study the impact of climate change on the monsoon. The model, developed by researchers at the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM),...

-The Indian Express Food safety is critical for public health as food-borne diseases affect people's well-being,strain health-care systems, and adversely impact national economies, tourism and trade How often do we ask ourselves if the food we are eating is safe? Do we know if it is free of bacteria, viruses, parasites, chemicals, other contaminates, additives and adulterants which can cause over 200 diseases ranging from diarrhoea to cancer? Every year, diarrhoea caused...

-The Indian Express The pace of land acquisition, which has been taking place in India since Independence, increased after liberalisation. In more cases than not, it has been successful, that is, both buyer and seller have been satisfied with the outcome. But today, land acquisition is being portrayed as next to impossible. This perception is not based on reality and needs to be changed. The farmer is wrongly being portrayed as...

-Huffington Post Bhau Kadam (name changed) is a small sugarcane farmer in western Maharashtra. He and his family own about 3 hectares of land. Kadam has two sons who are both graduates and work in Pune. When I asked him why he did not make his sons farmers, he said that farming is hard work, is non-remunerative and it is difficult to get labour. Besides he also thinks that a...

-Tehelka Shamefully, in India, a large percentage of the population still defecates in the open. However, a village in Tamil Nadu has scripted a rare success story by becoming an Open Defecation-Free Village. Nisha Ponthathil documents how the people of Amarambedu near Chennai triumphed over habit with a little help from the civil society Twenty-nine-year-old R Karthick, a resident of Amarambedu village, situated about 65 kilometres away from Tamil Nadu's capital Chennai,...