-The Telegraph New Delhi: An independent academic study has found India's emissions of methane, a major greenhouse gas that drives global warming, are consistent with the government's estimates and have shown little growth over the past five years. The study has found that India's average emissions of methane emissions - mainly from paddy fields and cows, among other sources - were about 22 trillion grams per year between 2010 and 2015, consistent...

-Livemint.com The government should put greater emphasis on behaviour change than construction of toilets In 2014, more than half of India’s population still practised open defecation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi set his government the goal of making the country open defecation-free in five years, by the 150th anniversary of M.K. Gandhi’s birthday in 2019, by launching the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA). Three years later, we are more than halfway into that period,...

-The Indian Express Delhi High Court judgment in the Mahmood Farooqui case obfuscates the basic principle of consent. The December 16, 2012, gangrape in New Delhi, and the widespread public agonising and legal reform that followed it, helped redefine ideas of gender justice in progressive ways. Following the recommendations of the Justice Verma Committee, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, criminalised voyeurism and stalking. These changes in the law have been accompanied...

-The Hindu Linking agricultural and nutritional outcomes is crucial The world’s population is booming. According to estimates, the global population is likely to exceed 9 billion by 2050, with 5 billion people in Asia alone. The capacity to produce enough quality food is falling behind human numbers. Food production in the region must keep pace, even as environment sustainability and economic development are ensured. The answer to these challenges lies in research...

-The Hindu Over the years we have lost over a lakh varieties of native rice. One district in Odisha is rediscovering some of them It is a balmy winter morning when I meet Kamli Bataraa, an ebullient Adivasi farmer, at her home in Belugan, in southern Odisha’s Koraput district. There is a hum across the village from the threshing of just-harvested paddy. When I ask Kamli about the rice varieties she grows,...