A strong trend towards agricultural diversification from food to commercial crops and from enterprise to allied activities is emerging. This shift is driven by both, state policies and the domestic market and has a bearing upon small and marginal landholders.

Even if YOU ignore ‘GM’ it will NOT ignore YOU! There are only two traits in 98 per cent of GM foods—production of a pesticide in every cell of the plant or the ability to withstand weed killing herbicides. GM food cannot be distinguished from non-GM food, so you will eat it if India grows it.

The forest certification systems by the Forest Stewardship Council is reflective of an emergent need, intertwining business and ethics. Its guidelines have setup a benchmark against which the modus operandi of timber corporations and plantations can be examined.

The threat of scarcity, distribution and quality of water, a finite, natural resource, has made its relationship with conflict. This is an area of continued interest and debate in both the policy literature and popular press.

Groundwater has increasingly been reported to include largely geogenic and anthropogenic contaminants such as iron, bacteria, arsenic, fluoride, nitrates etc. Over the decades, there has been a growing concern about arsenic contamination due to its severe health consequences.

Recent earthquakes highlight the need for a risk reduction strategy, especially for urban centres. With expanding cities, risk to human lives, buildings and infrastructure also increases. Urban safety has thus gained importance in recent years.

Remote sensing technologies serve as a management tool for authorities to forecast and issue early warning of floods. A Flood Response System developed by C-DAC focuses on near-real time flood monitoring in the Brahmaputra valley.

A dynamical state-of-the-art modelling framework has been setup by IITM for predicting seasonal as well as extended monsoon which IMD uses extensively.

Elite slum dwellers bargain, negotiate and build complex alliances outside the slum to gain power to displace, marginalise and exclude the poorest slum dwellers. Widowhood, one of the most vulnerable statuses, faces dispossession shaping conflicts within slums.

Indian education system has historically evolved to accommodate multiple providers and institutions. The school sector has seen the participation of governments, both centre and state and remains the mainstay of the country’s education system, providing education to nearly three-fourth of the students.