The key issue is not availability or resources but last mile delivery: how to reach foodgrains to people. In ancient Greece, the punishment given to Tantalus was to tie a cup around his neck and fill it with water. Every time he bent to take a sip, the cup would drop further and he would never get a drop into his parched mouth. From this comes the word “tantalizing”. Something like...

-The Economic Times Fertiliser will continue to be a key input in the crop production system as there are no alternatives to meet nutritional requirement of crops. Post-Independence, a substantial increase in indigenous production and consumption of urea and a range of P and K fertilisers made the country self-reliant both in fertiliser and food grain production. But farm production is stagnant though fertiliser use has been rising. The bone of...

-Economic and Political Weekly India’s fast food products must be subject to mandatory labelling. The role of fast or “junk” food with its concentration of fats, sugar and salt in the rapid multiplication of non-communicable lifestyle diseases has been the subject of countless studies over the past few decades, especially in the west. (A classic book from the United States with a title that says it all is Fast Food Nation.) Now, the...

In the mid-eighties there was a rumour which later turned out to be true: US livestock were being fed with foodgrains in order to ensure better quality of their meat. Later it proved to be corn and not fine cereals like wheat and rice. The Indian intelligentsia was appalled and indignant: How come cows and buffaloes were fed with grains while millions of people continued to live below the poverty line...

Experts agree that the economic and environmental costs of interlinking India's rivers far outweigh its projected benefits. Some people believe it is the one-stop solution to prevent floods and droughts, reduce water scarcity, raise irrigation potential and increase foodgrain production in the country. But others say it is just another grandiose scheme involving huge costs and leading to long-term ecological consequences. The contentious idea of interlinking India's rivers has come...