-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: As sowing picks up across the country, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Thursday approved increasing the minimum support prices (MSP) of kharif crops for 2013-14 crop year (July-June). The increase is expected to boost the sowing of paddy, cotton, oilseeds like soybean, millets and pulses crop in the country. On the basis of recommendations given by Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP),...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Vegetable prices have risen up to 50% in Delhi, Mumbai and other parts of the country as farms near the Yamuna river in northern India are flooded, while dry weather in many parts of western India have hit output. The deluge in parts of northern India has also wiped out muskmelon and watermelon apart from hurting the mango crop. Traders said it would take two to four...

-The Hindu While the focus is on pilgrims, nobody is talking about the fate of boys and men who came from their villages in the Mandakini valley to earn during the yatri season It is one week since Uttarakhand's worst disaster in living memory. Flash floods resulting from extremely intense rainfall swept away mountainsides, villages and towns, thousands of people, animals, Agricultural fields, irrigation canals, domestic water sources, dams, roads, bridges, and...

-The Hindu     Unorthodox models of conservation are needed to save this elusive and magnificent big bird "Have you seen the Big Five?" That's the question you will invariably be asked if you visit the East African states. The Big Five, Africa's largest, and thus most prominent, mammals - the lion, the rhino, the leopard, the buffalo and the elephant - have dominated camp fire stories, tourist expectations and the growth of conservation. Across...

Groundwater, which irrigates half of Indian agriculture and provides 85% of rural drinking consumption, is an increasingly scarce resource. There is a growing understanding that it must be approached as a common property resource for collective benefit. It is best understood and managed by those who live near them and use them rather than agencies who visit sporadically - that is the central premise of efforts around participatory groundwater management....