Noting that farm productivity would see significant drop due to climate change, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) Vice Chancellor MS Kang has said food security in both developing and developed countries is likely to be affected because of change in weather. The loss related to climate change is expected to hit developing countries hard, as agriculture employs extensive number of people being their economic mainstay, he said. Read more »
The rivers of Mandovi and Zuari have been polluted due to a high content of manganese, iron, colbalt and other trace elements leaching from iron ore dumps on their banks during the monsoon season, National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) scientist V P Rao said. Read more »
There finally is hope for those breathing polluted air in mining areas. The Union ministry of environment and forest (MOEF) has for the first time set new standards for operators of iron ore mining leases and ore processing units in a bid to control pollution caused by these activities, sources said. Read more »
The Public Works Department’s (PWD) inability to provide sufficient water to the Verna Industrial Estate has resulted in severe stress on the groundwater resources in the area. Water extraction through bore wells continues unabated in the industrial estate and this has taken a toll on the Kesarval spring situated near the industrial estate. Read more »
The Integrated Child Development Ser vices (ICDS), a scheme launched by the gov ernment in 1975, was meant to address the health and nutritional needs of women and children. But the high prevalence of child malnutrition is a severe indictment of it The mid-day meal scheme, along with the ICDS and a strong public distribution sys tem might have addressed the needs of chronically hungry children. But all these schemes remain mired in corruption even as they are rendered useless by apathetic implementation. Read more »
Despite its seminal success in beginning a process of addressing issues of poverty, starvation and empowering the poor, the MGNREGA needed a general election to breathe life into it. However, the disproportionate influence of the middle class on social sector policy has led to the same set of pre-election prejudices resurfacing. Read more »
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived for the G20 summit cautioning against protectionism while declaring it was in India’s interest to have an “open, stable and rule-based” international economic environment including in trade and investment flows. “Given the vast development challenges we face it is in India’s interest to have an open, stable and rule-based international economic environment, whether in the field of trade, investment flows, technology transfers or open markets,” Singh said on the eve of the fifth Summit of 20 advanced and emerging economies(G20) in the South Korean Capital. Read more »
The leaders attending the Seoul G20 summit will discuss and may wrap up regulatory reform on global financial market, Dong—soo Chin, Chairman of the financial services commission of South Korea, said here on Thursday. Read more »
Major nations struggled on Thursday to break a deadlock on how to fix the global economy as President Barack Obama warned the U.S. cannot continue to be a profligate consumer on borrowed money. Obama and the leaders of China, Japan, Germany and South Korea were also scheduled to hold a flurry of one-on-one talks bound to touch on sensitive trade and security issues ahead of the Group of 20 summit of major rich and developing nations, which officially opens later Thursday. Read more »