-The Hindu The Paris Agreement on climate change marks a milestone in preserving the earth’s environment and provides a floor on which to build ambition and action. It is the outcome of a long struggle by millions of citizens around the world, aided by the weight of scientific evidence linking severe, more frequent weather events such as cyclones and droughts to man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The 195 country-parties to the UN...

-The Telegraph Nearly 200 countries this evening reached a climate accord that some analysts have called a "turning point" in human history designed to drive the world towards 100 per cent clean energy. "It's a compromise... but it is a historic accord for the world," said Laurent Fabius, the president of the Paris conference of parties and the French foreign minister. "Our responsibility to history is immense." But others have warned that the...

-The Telegraph Paris: An international forestry research agency has accused the world's biggest users of coal, including India, of continuing their emphasis on coal-fired energy and thus threatening global efforts to curb Earth-warming greenhouse emissions. The Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) has bracketed India with Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Colombia and America as countries whose continued focus on coal is putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It has said these countries' pursuit...

-Livemint.com In 1986, Italian journalist Carlo Petrini was outraged when McDonald’s opened its first outlet in Rome. He saw this as a threat to Italy’s culinary culture. He led a protest against the global industrialization of food, which culminated in the slow food movement. Starting in Rome, the movement is now a worldwide phenomenon. Edited excerpts from an interview at the Indigenous Terra Madre in Shillong: * What are the key achievements...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Over 300 persons have been prosecuted under Maharashtra's new beef ban law since it was enacted eight months ago. The state government provided this information to the Bombay high court, where it has rejected the claim that people who consume beef constitute a "cultural minority". In its affidavit before a division bench of Justices Abhay Oka and S C Gupte, which is hearing petitions challenging the beef ban,...