-The United Nations Food prices dropped to an 11-month low in October, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today, while adding that they are still higher than last year and very volatile. FAO’s Food Price Index averaged 216 points last month, down 4 per cent from September, the agency said in a news release. The index is a measure of basic food prices at the global level. “The drop was...
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"Wife-sharing" haunts Indian villages as girls decline by Nita Bhalla
When Munni arrived in this fertile, sugarcane-growing region of north India as a young bride years ago, little did she imagine she would be forced into having sex and bearing children with her husband's two brothers who had failed to find wives. "My husband and his parents said I had to share myself with his brothers," said the woman in her mid-40s, dressed in a yellow sari, sitting in a village...
More »Home voices against Anna by Jaideep Hardikar
Vilas Bhagwan Pote grins as he recalls his election as sarpanch of Ralegan Siddhi, Anna Hazare’s village in Ahmednagar district, 11 years ago. “I was the traitor, the bad guy,” he jokes. “I openly defied Anna because I felt he was wrong.” Pote, a Dalit charmakar (cobbler) then in his 30s, had been unhappy as the 2000 panchayat polls drew close. As always, Anna had nominated a new executive body for the...
More »EGoM on food deferred due to differences among ruling allies
-PTI A meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on food, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and scheduled for today, has been postponed due to differences among ruling allies, especially the NCP, over the sugar export policy. The meeting was deferred as the NCP leader and Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar, wanted a clear policy on sugar export for 2011-12 to be decided this month, but Food Minister KV Thomas was...
More »With labourers turning to MGNREGS, farm sector may turn to machines by Gargi Parsai
Pawar announces mega plans for mechanisation in 12th Plan Faced with farm labour shortage following the introduction of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday announced mega plans for mechanisation in the 12th Five-Year Plan. “With the successful implementation of the MGNREGS and other anti-poverty programmes, there is now pressure on the availability of farm labour,” Mr. Pawar told senior journalists at the Economic...
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