Mineral resources are non-renewable. Every effort should be made to mine both high-and low-grade ores and utilise those precious resources fully, scientists and mineral experts who participated at a recently held three-day symposium here recommended. “At every mine site, the low-grade ores and minerals, which are many times more than the high-grade ones, have to be upgraded and the wastes should be utilised for backfilling the mined areas or other purposes,” they said.

Ahead of enacting the ambitious National Food Security Law, the government on Thursday approved setting up of a national centre for cold chain development and allocated a one-time grant of `25 crore as corpus fund. The Union Cabinet at its meeting here, which was chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, took the decision keeping in view the post harvest losses to the tune of `50,000 crore annually in absence of proper storage facilities.

When the state government is boasting of improving the condition of poor by pumping in massive fund in rural and health sector, at least 10 garden workers are reported to have died of starvation and lack of medical treatment since October 2011 in Assam’s Barrak Valley. The workers who died of starvation were working in Bhuvan Valley Tea Estate, which is closed since October 2011.

India's forest cover shrank by 367sq km with the maximum 80 per cent loss recorded in Andhra Pradesh mainly due to Naxals felling trees in Warangal and Khammam districts, according to a new survey released on Tuesday.

Forest and tree cover of the country as per the biennial assessment report released by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) is 78.29 million hectares, which is 23.81 per cent of the geographical area. This includes 2.76 per cent tree cover.

Members of Rapid Response Teams (RRTs), engaged in the culling of poultry birds, on Monday faced an embarrassing situation in Bhubaneswar. As they approached households in slums to collect birds to ward off the spread of the avian influenza, they found all houses locked. Frustrated, the RRTs returned emptied handed.

“When we went to different slums to collect birds from their owners, we found most of the houses locked. At some places, we found the birds roaming around but we could not catch them in absence of their owners,” RRT official Dr Ranjan Kumar Sahoo said.

China said on Monday it has banned its airlines from complying with an EU scheme to impose charges on carbon emissions opposed by more than two dozen countries including India, Russia and the United States.

Beijing has said repeatedly that it opposes the new European Union plan, which was imposed with effect from January 1, and which Chinese state media have warned would lead to a ‘trade war’ in the sector.

A strong 6.8 earthquake hit the central Philippines on Monday but there was no danger of a widespread tsunami, seismologists said.

The quake hit 70 kilometres (44 miles) north of the city of Dumaguete on Negros Island at 11:49 am (0349 GMT) at a depth of 46 kilometres, the US Geological Survey said.

A 6.5-magnitude earthquake hit off the coast of the South Pacific island of Vanuatu on Sunday, the Hong Kong Observatory said, but there were no reports of a tsunami warning.

The quake struck at 2210 IST around 81 kilometres southwest of the capital Port Vila. The shallow quake, which had a depth of four kilometres, was measured by the US Geological Survey as having a magnitude of 6 on the Richter scale.

Days after a report in the British Medical journal the Lancet indicated malaria mortality almost double than previously estimated by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the international health organisation bounced back claiming that some key findings of the new study do not seem to be based on “strong evidence”.

The WHO has also recommended that there is no need for the malaria endemic countries to make any changes in the ongoing policies applied by them, following the recent Lancet report.

After a nine-month survey and demarcation of mining areas in three mineral-rich districts of Bellary, Chitradurga and Tumkur; the Supreme Court-constituted Central Empowered Committee (CEC) investigating illegal mining in the state, is likely to submit its final report to the apex court on Monday.

The final report is believed to contain significant recommendations that would decide the future of once-powerful iron ore mining lobby in the state. One of the most important suggestions is auctioning of mining leases that had been recommended for cancellation by CEC for illegalities.