A social impact assessment report has slammed the 9900MW Jaitapur nuclear power park proposed in coastal Konkan, saying it would have a negative social and environmental impact on nearby villages. The 40-page report, compiled by a disaster management centre of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, has analysed the social impact the project would have on seven villages where the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd will acquire about 968 hectares. The...

It is time for India's government to put its money where its mouth is. New Delhi has raised some $30 billion since March by selling state assets and telecom airwaves. That is about as much as the country will attract in foreign direct investment this fiscal year. There is one area above all else where this money should be directed: food security. New Delhi talks a lot about guaranteeing food for India's...

Though organic farming has its own advantages, depending solely on it will not help augment food requirements of the country, said director general of ICAR S Ayyappan. “Organic manures can augment the microbial activity, prevent environmental deterioration and restore soil health. It can reduce the chemical load in soil and farm produce. But at this juncture, when quantum of food is close to deficit, one cannot truly identify with the sole...

Prof Shenggen Fan, Director General, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington DC, said that hunger and malnutrition continued to be challenging problems among 29 countries of the world, and India was one of them. As such, food and nutrition availability should be the major development goals in the national policy of these developing nations. Delivering a special lecture on the second day of the 93rd annual conference of the Indian...

In more ways than one the calendar year 2010 would go down the memory lane as a Watershed year for the food and agriculture front in the country which recorded unprecedented growth rate of 4.4 per cent in July-September quarter but by December unprecedented price hike of essential food items especially left consumers in tears.   As the year comes to an end, an embattled government and the Union agriculture ministry stood...