Food inflation remains extraordinarily high at 17.79%. The government emphasises supply problems caused by last year’s drought, But a bigger and less reversible problem is government-led inflation through big increases in the Minimum Support Prices (MSP). The MSP for wheat and paddy rose only modestly between 2002-03 and 2005-06 , from Rs 620 to Rs 650/ quintal and from Rs 530 to Rs 570/quintal respecticely. But after that the MSP shot...

BD Sharma is one of India's foremost experts on tribal issues. He has served as collector of undivided Bastar district in Chhattisgarh and commissioner for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and has campaigned extensively to protect the rights of tribals. Currently, the coordinator of Bharat Jan Andolan, a network of grass-roots organisations, Sharma tells that current notions of development are at the root of the Maoist insurgency: What has changed...

Sesikaran says Bt crop’s long-term effect on health can be studied only if it’s approved for commercial production Concerns raised by agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan, cited by the government as among the reasons to put a halt to the release of Bt brinjal, will be impossible to address, according to the head of a state-run laboratory. Swaminathan, 84, credited with the success of the Green Revolution of the 1960s that made India...

Ten journalists have been selected to spend time with rural communities, understand their anxieties and specialise in covering the country’s rural crises, through an initiative of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. The recipients of the Inclusive Media Fellowship are: Mahim Pratap Singh of The Hindu (to work on the impact of distress migration on nutrition security and livelihoods in five districts of Orissa), Joaquim Fernandes of The...

Environmental groups have questioned assertions by sections of scientists and the biotechnology industry that genetically-modified (GM) food crops could play a crucial role in ensuring food security. More than 180 GM plants have so far been field tested in several countries, but few have progressed to the stage where commercial seed is available to farmers, the non-government environmental network called Friends of the Earth (FoE) has said. “GM crops are...