-IPS News RAYAGADA: Scattered across 240 sq km on the remote Niyamgiri hill range in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, an ancient tribal group known as the Dongria Kondh have earned themselves a reputation as trailblazers. Having fought – and won – a decade-long battle with a British mining giant that invested close to a billion dollars in a bauxite extraction operation in this mineral-rich area, the Dongria Kondh set an...

-Hindustan Times London: With the global population expected to touch 9 billion by 2050, food from Forests in India and elsewhere have potential to address needs of nutrition and food security at a time when the limits of boosting agricultural production are becoming increasingly clear. A new report produced by an international panel led by Bhaskar Vira, an expert based at the University of Cambridge, says that  despite impressive productivity increases, there...

-IANS CHANDIGARH: They have been warned, threatened with prosecution and even offered inducements. But a number of farmers in Punjab and Haryana seem disinclined to stop their environment-unfriendly bi-annual exercise of burning crop residue, cited by environmentalists as one of the prinicipal causes of dust haze and air pollution in Delhi and northern India. With the wheat harvest in both the states nearly over, authorities are attempting in whatever they can to...

-Livemint.com Parliamentary panel blames ministry for not utilizing budget in full, demands tightening of administrative steps New Delhi: A parliamentary committee has criticized the government for cutting funds for the environment ministry and asked it to revise the allocation since the ministry is tasked with arresting environment degradation. The committee also blamed the ministry for not utilizing its budget in full, and demanded that it tighten its administrative mechanisms. A report by the...

-Deccan Herald There is a fresh threat to the country's green cover from a new definition of Forests being considered by the Centre. Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has said that the new definition will cover notified Forests and those with good tree cover. But it may leave out a good part of what is now considered as Forests. In fact, there is no clear definition of Forests even now in...