The rural development ministry has expressed its reservations on linking wages paid under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with minimum wages mandated by states for farm labour. In an internal note, which was reviewed by Mint, the ministry said such a step could lead to the states upwardly revising minimum wages for farm labour, an increased burden that the Central government then would have to bear. The ministry,...

Only 34 per cent of countries with endemic malaria are complying with United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations to routinely monitor anti-malarial medicines, according to a report released today. The agency’s “Global report on anti-malarial drug efficacy and drug resistance: 2000-2010” urges countries to be more vigilant in drug monitoring to allow for earlier detection of resistance to anti-malarial treatments. “A greater political commitment to support and sustain national monitoring of...

The Global Hunger Index report paints a gloomy picture of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. WITH the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals just five years away, the 2010 Global Hunger Index report prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) paints a gloomy picture of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Some 29 countries in these regions, it says, have levels of hunger that are alarming or extremely alarming....

The government must stop dilly-dallying over the project and apply the law regardless of the fact that it is India's single largest foreign investment proposal. TWO giant metallurgical projects, both in Orissa. Both promoted by big multinational corporations with tremendous influence. Both opposed by environmental and tribal rights activists because they would displace vulnerable people and destroy fragile ecosystems. Both backed strongly by State-level and national lobbies that claim they...

Even as the Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment — dubbed “the Indian Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)” — released its first report on the impact of climate change in four regions of the country, it admitted that significant Research gaps and lack of extensive databases were hampering Indian climate science. Long-term localised data was not available on vegetation and forest cover, socio-economic trends, farm inputs, pests and crop diseases,...