Even before the food and financial crises hit the world, prevalence of hunger in South Asia was increasing instead of decreasing, taking the region further away from the goal of reducing hunger by half by 2015, according to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals report, 2010. The report says in 2005-2007, the proportion of undernourished people in South Asia had swelled to levels last seen in 1990. The prevalence of...

The emerging economies of Brazil, India, China and Russia will enjoy an agricultural boom over the next decade as production stalls in Western Europe, a report says. Agricultural output in the Bric nations will grow three times as fast as in the major developed countries, the joint United Nations-OECD study said. Livestock and crop prices will stay above long-term averages, it added. And rising incomes and urbanisation in developing states...

Senior Congress leader and former sports minister Mani Shanker Aiyer has slammed the current United Progressive Alliance government under Dr Manmohan Singh for the huge amount of 'wasteful expenditure' being incurred on the Commonwealth games, saying that if a part of this money had been spent on the Bhopal Gas victims it would have brought the affected 'some relief'. The outspoken Aiyer, who was recently nominated to the Rajya Sabha, has...

Forty five signatures and one demand – end all forms of child labour to implement the Right to Education (RTE) Act in letter and spirit. This was the content of a petition addressed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The government should ensure that millions of children engaged in child labour were included in the implementation of the RTE Act. With this historic piece of legislation, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation...

Eminent citizens have petitioned PM Manmohan Singh asking him to ban all forms of child labour for those under 14 years of age. Spearheaded by international child rights organisation `Save the Children', 45 eminent members of society have demanded that the Child Labour Act be amended to remove contradictions between the Child Labour Prevention and Regulation Act (CLPRA) and the Right to Education (RTE) Act that provides education as a...