-The Indian Express Apart from sitting over the subsidy applications for agriculture machines, the state has not been able to add even a single biomass power plant in the last three years. Ludhiana: Even while Punjab attempted to wash its hands of the air pollution that is plaguing Delhi, the state has not been able to set its own house in order either. Apart from sitting over the subsidy applications for agriculture machines,...

-The Hindu The massive pollution cloud enveloping northern India every year is a good example of the disconnect between official policy and ground realities. It has been known for long that burning of agricultural waste in the northern States significantly contributes to the poor air quality in large parts of the Indo-Gangetic Basin, with local and cascading impacts felt from Punjab all the way to West Bengal. Harmful fine particulate matter...

-The Hindu Business Line The spread of rural electrification has been overestimated, and the adoption of subsidised LPG has not picked up It is little more than a year since the Sustainable Development Goals were agreed to at the UN General Assembly. SDGs are a set of 17 goals that are intended to dramatically improve lives across the world by 2030. A major goal is SDG7 which aims to ensure universal access...

-The Indian Express Agriculture’s contribution to poverty reduction is five times more than that of metropolitan centres Speaking at the third BRICS Urbanisation Forum in Visakhapatnam on September 14, Deputy Chairman of the Niti Ayog, Arvind Panagariya, announced that “Without cities we can’t grow rapidly”. He added, “urbanisation plays an important role in poverty alleviation”. Both claims are exaggerated and somewhat misleading. A recent report prepared for the UN points out that, over...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A report by the United Nations Children's agency, Unicef, released on Monday has confirmed the worst fears of people living in polluted areas — that bad air is contributing to death of many children even before they celebrate their fifth birthday. Outdoor and indoor pollution, the agency noted, are directly linked to respiratory diseases that account for almost one in 10 under-five deaths, making air pollution...