Jorhat, Feb. 3: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration will help the tea industry study the impact of climate change on tea bushes. The additional vice-chairman of Tea Research Association, Prabhat Bezboruah, said the recently formed working group on global climate change would take help from Nasa to study climate change and its impact on tea bushes.

Heavy summer rains across eastern Australia prompted authorities to issue flood warnings for vast areas of Queensland and New South Wales states on Thursday, including coal mining areas in the Hunter Valley.

The Bureau of Meteorology issued the flood warnings with heavy rain expected over the next 24 hours, following saturating rains over the past week which have already swelled rivers in New South Wales and Queensland.

International Development Association (IDA) will provide dollars 250 million for Punjab Irrigated Agriculture Productivity Improvement Programme Project Phase-I, while local beneficiaries would bear dollars 173.5 million.

According to an update project report of World Bank, the project's main objectives are to improve water productivity.

Heavy summer rains across eastern Australia prompted authorities to issue flood warnings for vast areas of Queensland and New South Wales states on Thursday, including coal mining areas in the Hunter Valley.

The Bureau of Meteorology issued the flood warnings with heavy rain expected over the next 24 hours, following saturating rains over the past week which have already swelled rivers in New South Wales and Queensland.

At least three people were killed and 35 injured as heavy rains lashed Indonesia, bringing down trees and powerlines and damaging hundreds of homes, an official said Thursday.

‘Storms on Wednesday killed three people — one person in Jakarta and one each in Malang and Blitar districts in East Java,’ National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

‘A motor rickshaw driver in Jakarta was killed after being crushed by a falling tree. The storms also killed two other people, but we are investigating the circumstances,’ he added.

Almost 10 per cent of villages in the state have been freshly earmarked to receive notifications under the Andhra Pradesh Water, Land and Trees Act, 2002.

The villages have been identified by the groundwater department here that has asked the state government to strictly check deep-bore drilling in about 2,500 villages that are to be notified in a fresh move this year.

SHILLONG: Pointing out that the State is blessed with the highest amount of rainfall, Principal Secretary of Soil and Water Conservation PBO Warjri rued the fact that the State has not been able to retain this blessing.

“The total amount of water which precipitates from Meghalaya either goes to Bangladesh or the Brahmaputra. We are able to retain very less water,” Warjri said after the release of the annual report of the State Soil and Water Conservation department on Tuesday.

A United Nations report on global economic prospects has projected India's economy to grow at a pace a tad lower than 8 per cent in 2012 and 2013 in view of the sharp increase in downside risks stemming from the problems in Europe and the U.S.

In its report on ‘World Economic Situation and Prospects 2012,' released here on Tuesday, it said: “India's economy is forecast to expand at a pace similar to 2011 in the following two years ... at 7.7 per cent in 2012 and 7.9 per cent in 2013.”