Increased use of fresh water supplies in agricultural and non-agricultural activities in the past few decades has caused an alarming rate of groundwater depletion in many regions of the world. This threatens the sustenance of crop production and the ensuing food security.

Groundwater with high geogenic arsenic (As) is extensively present in the Holocene alluvial aquifers of Ghazipur District in the middle Gangetic Plain, India. A shift in the climatic conditions, weathering of carbonate and silicate minerals, surface water interactions, ion exchange, redox processes, and anthropogenic activities are responsible for high concentrations of cations, anions and As in the groundwater.

India is the largest producer and consumer of pulses in the world. However, pulses production has been stagnant at between 11 and 14 million tonnes over the last two decades. Per capita pulses consumption over the years has come down from 61gm/day in 1951 to 30 gm/day in 2008.

The results of the study of archaeobotanical samples from Neolithic site, Jhusi, at the confluence of Yamuna and Ganga rivers in Allahabad, UP, are presented here and discussed in the light of information on prehistoric plants of subsistence in Ganga Plain during 7th millennium BC

The 18 August 2008 avulsion of the Kosi River draining the parts of north Bihar in eastern India may well be regarded as one of the greatest avulsions in a large river in recent years. The Kosi River shifted by ~120 km eastward, triggered by the breach of the eastern afflux bund at Kusaha in Nepal at a location 12 km upstream of the Kosi barrage. This event was widely perceived