VADODARA: Your morning cup of tea would not fire up your sleepy senses without a little milk in it, and yet a debate has been stirred up on what should be India's national drink - tea or milk.

On Saturday, deputy chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia announced in Jorhat, the tea capital of India, that tea will be given that place of pride by April next year.

Anand: The first phase of National Dairy Plan (NDP), the ambitious scheme to double India’s milk production, was launched at the headquarters of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in the country’s milk capital here on Thursday.

Launched as ‘Mission Milk’, NDP proposes to usher in country’s second White Revolution. Since 1998, India has already emerged as world’s largest milk producer.

A 600 MW solar power park, touted as Asia's first and largest, was on Thursday dedicated to the nation by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the state's Patan district, in a boost to India's efforts towards low carbon growth.

The solar power park with a power generation capacity of 600 MW, covering approximately 3,000 acres of wasteland bordering the Rann of Kutch, will generate two-thirds of India's total 900 MW of solar power production.

Solar power projects with a total capacity of 600 Mw will soon be commisioned at a ceremony at Gujarat Solar Park at Charanka village in Radhanpur, officials of Gujarat Power Corporation said here on Sunday.

The projects at Solar Park currently has an aggregate capacity of 214 Mw.Twenty one new projects generating 210 Mw of solar power would be commissioned at the Solar park on April 19 by Chief Minister Narendra Modi, while other projects have been developed at Anand, Banaskantha, Jamnangar, Junagadh, Kutch, Porbandar, Rajkot, Surat, and Surendranagar, they said.

Gandhinagar: Closely following the draft Gujarat Water Policy 2011 sent to the chief minister’s office (CMO) for finalization, a fresh high-level document, prepared for the Planning Commission of India, has proposed major water reforms in rural Gujarat.

This document proposes introducing availability of water 24x7 through water meters at the individual household level. Suggesting that this can be done on a pilot basis in 50 selected villages in the first year of the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), the document says other villages can follow “based on results and response of the community towards water usage.”

Anand (Gujarat) India continues to be the largest milk producing nation, according to the report of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) for 2010-11.

The country’s estimated milk production for the period stood at 121 million tonne (mt), close to 17% of the world’s total produce.

GANDHINAGAR: Despite huge claims of rise in water tables across Gujarat and simultaneous improvement in groundwater levels because of tens of thousands of watershed projects, checkdams, village ponds and other recharge structures, an authoritative report suggests there is, if at all, marginal improvement. In fact, even in North Gujarat, where Sujalam Sufalam recharge canal runs across 360-km, water tables appear to have gone down. Also, the quality of water in this region has deteriorated.

Gandhinagar: Next time you drive along the Narmada canal or a river bed, you are likely to see tall trees. The state government, in a bid to increase tree cover in the non-forest area, has decided to adopt the Anand model of tree plantation in 17 districts in the state.

In Anand, farmers started planting trees along rivers, ponds and even on the boundaries of fields.

Survey Finds Ahmedabad Among Six Districts With Less Than 10 Trees Per Hectare; Gandhinagar, Anand Top List
Rapid urbanisation has taken a toll on the tree cover in Ahmedabad. It now features among the six districts which have less than 10 trees per hectare.

This was revealed in findings of a 2009 tree cover survey.