-AFP   A French court on Monday found US agro giant Monsanto legally responsible for the poisoning of a farmer with one of its herbicides in 2004, in a verdict that could have global implications.  "Monsanto is responsible for Paul Francois's suffering after he inhaled the Lasso product ... and must entirely compensate him," said the judgement from the court in the southeastern city of Lyon.  "This concerns farmers around the world," said the...

The National Green Tribunal is the latest to point out that consultants are including “cooked data” in the key environment impact assessment (EIA) reports which determine green clearances for industrial projects. The Tribunal has told the government to come up with a mechanism to ensure authentic data. The Tribunal made its comments last week while suspending the environment clearance given to Scania Steel and Power for the expansion of its sponge...

“It never reached anywhere except in the pockets of the officers, contractors” “Bundelkhand package? It never reached anywhere except in the pockets of the officers and contractors.” This is the standard reply one gets on queries over the ambitious Rs. 7,266 crore special package announced by the Planning Commission for this backward drought-prone region of Uttar Pradesh. Announced in 2009, the package was meant for the overall development of the region spread...

Iqbal Masud, the civil servant and critic, supported the ban on The Satanic Verses in 1989. His reason was simple: if the book remained on sale in India, Muslims would march in protest, policemen would fire upon them, some of them would die, and no book, said Masud, was worth the life of a single protester. There were, he allowed, legitimate arguments to be made about incitement, about mobs marching against...

-The Financial Express   Bhim can't understand what he's done wrong.   Before dawn every day he joins hundreds of wholesale traders at Delhi's Azadpur Mandi, a sprawling, chaotic market where trucks blare Bollywood music, porters haul huge brown sacks of fruit and vegetables and hawkers ply tea and cigarettes. His own trade is in rosy red apples, laced with calcium carbide. Bhim says he's been adding chemicals to his apples for years to artificially ripen...