-Reuters The amount of land needed to grow crops worldwide is at a peak and an area more than twice the size of France can return to nature by 2060 due to rising yields and slower population growth, a group of experts said on Monday. The report, conflicting with U.N. studies that say more cropland will be needed in coming decades to avert hunger and price spikes as the world population rises...

-The Hindu THE SUNDAY STORY In 2007, energy sector (including power, transport, residential electricity was responsible for 58 per cent of emissions, industry for 22 per cent and agriculture, 17 per cent. After focussing on the international climate change negotiations in Doha earlier this month, the spotlight is shifting back to the domestic scene. India can point the finger at the failure of rich countries to check the growth of their greenhouse...

-The Economic Times KOCHI: A spate of avian flu outbreaks in the last few years has dashed India's hopes of becoming a major egg exporter. Oman, the largest buyer of Indian eggs, has now imposed a second ban on Indian shipments this year following the avian flu incidence in a research farm in Karnataka. The earlier embargo on Indian eggs enforced by Oman in March was only lifted in September. Oman accounts...

-Agence France-Presse Nekpur: With both hands holding the basket of human excrement on her head, widowed grandmother Kela walks through a stream of sewage, up a mound of waste and then dumps the filth while cursing. "Nobody even pays us a decent wage!" she spits as she rakes mud and rubbish over her newly deposited pile, one of several she drops in the course of her working day cleaning toilets as a...

Since early November, Delhi and large parts of North India have been enveloped in a thick, grey smog, sparking concerns and a debate on what is leading to the rising levels of air pollution. A January 2012 paper by Ridhima Gupta from the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi is drawing linkages between the quality of air in the capital and agricultural practices during harvest season on farms in the neighbouring state...