Russia could lift ban on export of Indian rice Russia may lift the ban on exports of rice, groundnut and sesame seeds from India soon. The ban was imposed in April after Russia's monitoring

declining fertility

In the latest clash in a decade-old war between wildlife rangers and poachers in Kenya, around three wildlife rangers and four suspected poachers were killed in a shoot-out in Kenya's Tana River

>> Bolivian President Evo Morales recently announced that credits from the International Monetary Fund would be refused if they were accompanied with stiff conditions.

>> 10 per cent of the Yellow River, China's second longest river, is made up of untreated sewage from factory discharges and urban centres, according to a recent report by Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, an NGO based in Beijing.

the centre informed Parliament on April 30, 2007, that it was necessary to relocate Asiatic lions from the Gir National Park (gnp) in Gujarat to save them from extinction. But the Gujarat

in the first week of May, 200-odd Van Gujjar families started moving towards their summer homes in Uttarkashi district, Uttarakhand. They had been stranded around Vikasnagar near Dehradun before a

When it comes to Karnataka's forest cover, even a brigand like Veerappan had his uses. His dreaded presence in the jungles in advertantly served to preserve the state's green cover, even though the bandit himself was an unrepentant poacher of elephants. "He kept encroachers at bay," admits ^ ornithologist and bird specialist H M.B.