Small and marginal farmers would be the worst sufferers of climate change, Union Minister for Agriculture and Food Sharad Pawar said here on Wednesday. “In the wake of water scarcity, erratic rainfall and changing temperature regimes, in addition to prevalent diseases and threat of new race of wheat stem rust Ug99, small and marginal farmers will be challenged. With the cost of cultivation already high, even a slight reduction in productivity...

The collapse of the Dubai dream is not without any implications; it may be an indication that the travails of finance capitalism are not over. GLOBAL capitalism is in a phase in which it must deal with the fruits of the overextension during the previous boom, and there is no doubt that this is going to be painful. The financial crisis in the United States and some other developed countries...

India, China and 128 other countries briefly walked out of the climate change talks here today in protest against the failure of industrialised countries to make firm commitments on greenhouse gas emission cuts in the years beyond 2012. The walkout by the developing countries followed an exchange between Australian and African delegates at a meeting called to set emission reduction targets for the industrialised countries. Australia refused to make any commitment on...

Introduction The phenomenon of disability is one of the pressing problems in the world. According to the projections of international agencies, about 10 per cent of the population are affected with physical, mental, sensory and other forms of impairments and around 75 per cent of the disabled population are concentrated in the rural and inaccessible areas of the developing societies. This data is based on recent studies carried out in various...

Governments and people have to make choices about accepting new scientific developments into their daily lives. Many attribute high levels of objectivity and integrity to scientists, which is not true of many of them. Scientists have been known to manipulate results to their advantage. Scientific issues are often complex, there are differing views among scientists and the layman finds it difficult to decide which scientific course is harmful or beneficial....