The Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) has warned against the increasing leasing and buying of millions of hectares of farmlands in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America for food and fuel production. This land is being leased to private investors and sovereign wealth funds with no explicit legal agreement on how water will be used on these farmlands. The World Bank has estimated that over 56 million hectares of land in Africa...

-The Times of India   KENDRAPADA: An England-based NRI will make a documentary on the protests by seaside villagers of Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gadakujang against the proposed Posco steel plant. The film-maker, Prafulla Mohanty (74), is from Nanpur village, 20 km from here. Mohanty, also a writer and painter, visited several villages in the area to make the film recently. "I will also write a book on the anti-land acquisition movement," Mohanty said. "Through...

-The Economic Times World Bank has said it will extend full financial support to India to help enhance the abysmal level of infrastructural development in the country in the 12th Five Year Plan that begins next fiscal.  The World Bank president Robert B Zoellick, who begins his fifth and last official visit to India on Monday, has expressed intent to discuss innovative methods of financing with Indian leaders during his stay.  "India's needs...

Inequality in India is worsening and clearly following the US pattern India is a “relatively low-income inequality country” – to borrow an expression from a World Bank publication – when compared to China or Brazil, but there is no doubt that disparities have been widening of late. Planning Commission officials have admitted that inequality has risen in the first decade of the new millennium, although the factors responsible for it need...

The Planning Commission is back in the news. The latest round of poverty levels that have been disclosed have created another debate in the country. Once more, people are stunned at the meager rate of Rs 28 that has been defined as the poverty line. Even though I addressed some apprehensions in an earlier post, this time around the issue seems to be more about myths, perceptions and lack of...