-The Economic Times With carbon markets at an all time low and prospects of international long-term finance dim, the Planning Commission has suggested reworking the Rs 23,000 crore National Action Plan on climate change. It has reduced the number of missions and refocused them in line with "priorities". In 2008, the government had laid out a national strategy that would address India's development concerns and the challenges that climate change would present....

-IPS News World Water Week recently concluded in Stockholm with a special emphasis on the linkages between water and food security. From the worst drought in 56 years in the United States Midwest, to the Karnataka’s drought in India, to the protracted drought in the Sahel region of West Africa, we have also seen how in our globalised world the nexus between lack of water and food security in one corner of...

-People's Democracy IT seems the Sheila Dixit government of Delhi, backed by powerful elements in the UPA-2 central government, will let nothing stand in the way of water privatisation in the capital. Several earlier attempts going back many years to fully or partially privatise distribution of water, especially the big loan application to the World Bank in 2005, were foiled by vigilant community organisations, public interest groups, trade unions and political...

-Live Mint Despite a directive, and later a final warning from the Supreme Court, some states are yet to notify core areas that include tiger breeding grounds The Supreme Court will on Wednesday assess whether state governments have complied with its order to notify core and buffer areas of tiger reserves in line with the provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, after banning organized tourism in breeding grounds of the big cats...

-The Telegraph Bengal should follow in the footsteps of Mendha Lekha if it wants to beat back Maoists. And so should Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. That’s what rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has advised in a letter he wrote last week. Create “more Mendha Lekhas”, he said, referring to the Maharashtra village that gave villagers community rights over minor forest resource and transit permit to sell such produce. For thousands...