-The Hindustan Times The flood situation in Assam worsened on Thursday with new areas coming under water and the toll reaching 22. Altogether, 21 districts have been affected following the week-long incessant rains. The river has breached embankment at five places, affecting 1,744 villages across nine districts and 70,000 hectares of crop land. The situation in Kamrup, Nalbari and Bongaigaon in lower Assam worsened on Thursday, after the tributaries of Brahmaputra breached their...

-The Hindu Business Line VISAKHAPATNAM: Farmers in Visakhapatnam district are being encouraged to rediscover and adopt age-old agricultural practices, give up use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and grow organic crops, according to Mr P. Ramana, district manager of Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture project. He said in an interview that the project, being implemented by the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), is meant to support poor farmers to adopt sustainable agricultural practices...

-The Times of India The UPA is likely to rejig the Sonia Gandh-led National Advisory Council(NAC) with four members of the government think-tank for social sector reforms — Jean Dreze, M S Swaminathan, Harsh Mander and Madhav Gadgil — being dropped at the end of their second year tenure. Dreze, an economist and one of the most prominent faces of the NAC, who had strongly advocated for a universal food security, had...

-Down to Earth World is moving towards natural capital as a measure of economic growth After using gross domestic product, or GDP, as the universal measurement of economy for six decades, the world has begun looking beyond this gold standard for measuring a country’s economy. On May 25, 10 African countries agreed to incorporate their natural capital, or value of their natural resources, into their national accounts to make better economic decisions. The...

-The Economic Times The Centre has decided to put on hold its plans to move ahead with a legislation that would change the way land records are made, kept and used. The rural development ministry has decided not to push through the Land Titling Bill for the time being. "Twenty-five years ago, I believed like many others that we should move from presumptive to conclusive titles. I still believe that we should...