-The United Nations   Faced with increased poaching and illegal trade in ivory and horns of elephants and rhinoceroses, 300 government and civil society experts worldwide are seeking to strengthen conservation with new financial mechanisms at a United Nations-backed meeting in Geneva this week. “Innovative financial solutions are required to achieve the huge conservation task before us,” John Scanlon, Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and...

Reforms in the supply-chain system can help India tackle the demand-supply mismatch in essential food items Food inflation may have dropped to single digit but since that fall is set against last year’s elevated double-digit base, it continues to hurt the poor — 65 per cent of their disposable income goes towards food. The government often defends its failure to tame inflation by arguing that it has no magic wand to...

It’s been raining “rights” in Indian policy for the last few years — education, work, food, service, healthcare, and much else. This “Diet Coke” approach to poverty reduction — the sweetness without the calories — was always dangerous because of unknown side effects. Commenting in 1790 on the consequences of the French Revolution, Edmund Burke said: “They have found their punishment in their success. Laws overturned, tribunals subverted, industry without...

If Rajiv Gandhi were alive, he would have been delighted to see his view on leakages confirmed by a research study on the public distribution system [How Can Food Subsidies Work Better? Answers from India and the Philippines by Shikha Jha and Bharat Ramaswami (http://www.adb.org/documents/working-papers/2010/economics-wp221.pdf)]. The ADB study showed that the deserving poor in India received only 10 per cent of the benefits from the system. Nearly twice accrues to...

Ahmedabad : In a five-page concept note that will be further expanded and which is expected to guide the government policy during the 12th Five-Year Plan for the state, 10 senior academics have pointed out the areas of concern in rural parts of Gujarat. They have put forward a proposal before the state. The paper is a result of a meeting chaired by IRMA chairman Professor Y K Alagh on the...