The year 2010 endured 950 natural disasters, 90 percent of which were weather-related and cost the global community well over 130 billion dollars. From wildfires in Brazil to record rainfall in the United States to the severe drought and famine in the Horn of Africa, it has become clear to many that quick and radical decisions need to be made about the world's future.  One of the biggest advocates of this position...

For once, it is a happy farewell to the monsoon. An indulgent rain god, who overstayed for a week to compensate two successive years of drought in Jharkhand, today departed with the golden promise of a bumper winter yield. Weathermen at the Patna Meteorological Office confirmed that the monsoon trough had become weak after October 11, but faded away only today. “The rains have officially withdrawn from Jharkhand. But several parts of...

-The United Nations   The United Nations and international figures marked World Food Day today with calls for immediate aid and longer-term solutions, and warnings of factors that keep hundreds of millions mired in hunger, such as price swings and gender discrimination. In a message delivered to a ceremony at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) headquarters in Rome, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed that there is more than enough food on the...

-The Economic Times   If food inflation seems to be pinching more, it is because vegetable prices barely decline in winters, milk rises through the year and egg prices remain high in summers - all because of rising demand.  Over the years, the seasonal variation in prices has dropped and consumers do not have the option of shifting to cheaper produce to keep daily costs down, says a recent Reserve Bank of India...

Used to getting jobs done through contracts, government department assigned budgets under rural employment guarantee schemes have failed to use earmarked funds, while job card holders in the countryside are making the best of what is available. Government documents showed that of the Rs 880 crore funds available under MNREGA for Himachal in 2010-11, ten line government departments under the flagship programme had spent only Rs 15.57 crore till September. Besides a...