-The Economic Times The monsoon made a dream start this year. Bountiful rainfall in June has prepared the ground for bumper harvest and lower food inflation. But don't celebrate. Look beyond the immediate future and good monsoon this year may not really be good news. It has merely delayed an agricultural crisis, which our complacent policymakers perhaps need to jolt them into action. With food demand rising in step with the growing...

-The United Nations Global cereal production is expected to increase by 7 per cent in 2013 compared to last year, the United Nations food agency said today, but warned that in spite of a boost in supply, various regions including Central Africa, West Africa and Syria are still affected by food insecurity. In its Crop Prospects and Food SITuation report, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) forecasts that cereal production this year...

-The Business Standard Under-recovery estimated to touch Rs 1.5 lakh cr in FY14 due to rising crude oil prices & falling rupee The fall in the rupee to a new low this week has made the government jittery, as the under-recovery on petroleum products is threatening to touch Rs 150,000 crore in 2013-14, despite phased diesel decontrol and capping of subsidised cooking gas cylinders. According to the petroleum ministry's estimates, for every rupee...

-The Hindu Uttarakhand reiterates that our rulers have contemptuous disregard for the advice of the best scientists and would rather listen to contractors and builders to whom they are beholden for funds In the early 1980s, while doing research on the environmental history of Uttarakhand, I sometimes viSITed the library of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun. Most of the journals in the library dealt with geology and earth sciences,...

-The Telegraph Has rape become an inspiring act? Protest, debate, anger, mutual blame, marches, mob violence are spilling out of streets and screens, yet the rape count continues to rise relentlessly, almost as if the outrage over one incident is inciting the next one. Such a narrative is to an extent encouraged by the way incidents are reported in newspapers and television, but the facts are inescapable, and everybody, including the...