-TheSundayGuardianLive.com Delhi’s problem of being covered by smoke started right after the Punjab Preservation of Subsoil Water Act in 2009, which delayed the burning of crops till late October, was implemented for the first time. Until a few years ago, when farmers in Punjab burnt the remnants of the rice crops in their fields in preparation for sowing wheat, the smoke from such fires was confined to Punjab. Back then, farmers burnt...

-The Times of India JAIPUR: To reduce the level of stunting, undernutrition, anemia and low birth weight in babies, the Centre has included 24 districts of Rajasthan in the first phase of National Nutrition Mission (NMM), which is expected to be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Jhunjhunu on January 22. In the first phase, 315 districts from different states will be taken up. In the second, 235 districts will be...

-Livemint.com The regulatory system for the seed and biotech industry should be transparent, science-based, predictable and fair For many decades, the Indian policy framework facilitated the interaction of science and innovation with entrepreneurship, which led to competition and the subsequent development of an industry structure that delivered sustainable economic benefits. The government was a major contributor to investments in seed research in India for close to three decades after independence. Policy reforms like...

-Tehelka.com Learning from the recent starvation deaths in Jharkhand, the nation’s leaders must pay heed to the necessity of ensuring food security for all Food and hunger have been important issues this past month and the news has not been welcome. First it was India’s dismal rank in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2017 released by the International Policy Research Institute rankings — 100th among 119 countries. GHI looks at undernourishment, child...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Four years after the Muzaffarnagar riots, a survey by Amnesty International and NGO Afkar India Foundation has found that at least 200 families from some of the worst-hit pockets were left out of the compensation. The then Samajwadi government of Uttar Pradesh had declared that each of the 1,800 displaced families from the nine worst-affected villages would get Rs 5 lakh. Between August 2016 and April 2017, the...