-The Business Standard Every year, like clockwork, India is caught between the spectre of months of crippling water shortages and drought and months of devastating floods. In 2014, there has been no respite from this annual cycle. But something new and strange is indeed afoot. Each year, the floods are growing in intensity. Each year, the rain events get more variable and more extreme. Each year, economic damages increase -...

-The Hindustan Times Former Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh set a cat among the pigeons, in his inimitable style, at a recent national conference on climate and sustainable Development at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai. He asserted that India would be "the last man standing at Paris", referring to the United Nations climate negotiations which will culminate in France in December 2015. India's current stance was "inflexible...

-PTI   HRD minister Smriti Irani on Sunday favoured strong linkages between institutes of higher learning and rural India for the Development of villages and suggested that they should start courses on rural Development. She said her ministry would also set up "cell" to see that educational institutions were engaged in programmes aimed at Development of rural India. "Our aim in the coming five years is that all technical institutions are connected to the...

-Frontline   The United Nation's MDG report 2014 shows that despite India's significant economic progress, around one-third of the world's extremely poor people reside in the country. IT is raining Development goals. As the period for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) draws to a close next year, discussions around these goals and what should replace them have reached fever pitch, with national governments, international organisations and representatives of civil society participating in them. Of...

-Women's Feature Service Tribal families in Bankura, West Bengal, living on a stable diet of potato and rice and occasionally some 'daal' (lentils), are now consuming a variety of vegetables, cereals, fruits and animal protein with relish on a daily basis, marking a sea change in the nutrition parametres in one of the most backward districts of India. The credit for this dramatic transformation goes to the dry land sustainable integrated farming...