-Pratirodh.com The streets of the obscure town of Pandharkawda in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra have come to life. Hundreds of villagers crowd them for the weekly haat to buy their supplies of vegetables, spices, pulses and tobacco, while farmers throng shops selling seeds, pesticides, manure and farm commodities. Dressed in bright cotton sarees, women haggle with vendors. Even doctors, especially dentists, are having a busy day with long queues of patients...

-The Economic Times DOHA: India faces the risk of devastating drought as monsoon rains are likely to have a shortfall of 70% in the years ahead, as climate change shakes up global weather phenomena, recent research and experts at a global conference said. The risk of adverse changes in global weather is aggravated by the fact that international efforts to act against climate change have been blocked by deep divisions among the...

-Down to Earth An ecologist has been guarding seeds of more than 750 rare rice varieties for over a decade Lit by a kerosene lamp, the two-room hut just outside a sleepy hamlet in Odisha’s Rayagada district can easily pass off as any other farmer’s house in this tribal region. Step inside it, and one is taken aback by the hundreds of earthen pots labelled with coded stickers stacked in a corner...

-First Post Predictably, the recommendation by an experts’ panel appointed by the Supreme Court  - that trials of genetically modified (GM) crops should be halted for 10 years – has stirred a hornet’s nest. Such a moratorium would include ongoing trials and the court rejected it. This follows on the heels of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture’s 492-page report published in August which asked for the banning of GM food crops...

-Outlook The cap on subsidised LPG has the UPA regime worried Something Cookin’     There’s definitely going to be a relook at the six-subsidised-cylinders cap     Fear that LPG could cause a replay of the “onion impact” on 2014 polls     Pressure from all parties for increasing number of subsidised cylinders     Central government keen that states too share burden of extra cylinders      But that could be tricky when discussing Centre-state revenue-sharing Cylinder Pricing     Subsidised cylinders...