Despite crores being spent in the name of conservation and Project Tiger, illegal mining activity is back in full gear in the protected area of Sariska Wildlife Sanctuary. "Rampant mining is going on at Jaisinghpura, Malana, Goverdhanpura, Palpura and Jamwa Ramgarh, in spite of the Supreme Court's 1991 order banning mining in the area. After SC's order, 215 mines were closed. But recently, some of them have restarted activity in the...

Commissioner of cane development and sugar director A K Monnappa regretted that the benefits of research in agriculture sector were not reaching the farmers adequately though there have been rise in research activities in recent years. Inaugurating the four-day training programme on improved cultivation of sugarcane and sugar beet for the cane development staff of sugar factories in north Karnataka held at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Dharwad on Tuesday,...

The spectre of a global food crisis has reared its head again. Soaring corn prices, which on Monday recorded their biggest one-day rise since 1973, have triggered fears of a return to the turmoil of 2007-2008. Far-reaching measures are needed to prevent a recurrence. Rising prices over the last decade are in part the result of burgeoning demand from emerging markets such as China and India. The emergence of commodities as...

The amount of rural reportage in the Indian media remains far too low, with even important stories such as those on farmer suicides tending to be ignored. One of the outspoken critics of this trend has been P Sainath, rural-affairs editor of The Hindu  and 2007 winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts. He was also the journalist who originally broke the story on...

THE definition of poverty has been at the core of discussions and commitments at the international level to address it and, by a logical conclusion, to eradicate it. This intent is the basis for the lofty Millennium Development Goals adopted by the UN member-states and international organisations at the beginning of this century. Now, 10 years later, the UN Summit on MDGs in New York last month was meant to...