-Down to Earth Pandemic-induced poverty and rise in food prices keep healthy diet out of reach of three billion people Good food or just food? “Our choice is always the latter. We need to survive.” Sukru Ojha, the 56-year-old resident of Koraput, Odisha told Down To Earth in April in reply to a query on whether the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic-induced income loss impacted his food intake. Koraput is one of...

-Press release by CUTS International dated 5th July, 2021 In a study done by CUTS International under its 4-years  old project -- ProOrganic, almost 97.4 percent of consumers were found to be aware of the fact that chemical input-based food products are harmful for health compared to 86 percent of the same set of consumers way back in 2017. Similarly, the percentage of farmers doing organic farming has gone up to...

-Newsclick.in Modi government has been mercilessly hiking up taxes on petrol and diesel to take money from the people and boost its resources. Since the prices of petroleum products were deregulated some years back and supposedly “linked” to markets, the central government has weaponised this to simply impose an indirect tax burden on the people. Take the four big metros: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. On an average, petrol prices have increased from...

-IndiaToday.in India’s edible oil demand far exceeds domestic production. At least 60 per cent is met through imports, and global prices are soaring. Is there a way out? These days, aside from the coronavirus, Ajay Kumar a 40-year-old a resident of Tagore Garden in West Delhi, finds himself worrying about inflation. He says his monthly spending on essentials like vegetable oils has been steadily rising—a litre of mustard oil now costs him...

In his Mann ki Baat address to the nation on 30th May, 2021, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi appreciated the fact that the farmers received "more than the minimum support price (MSP) for mustard" pertaining to the rabi production. One can easily guess from this statement of the PM that the mustard growers in Haryana (and elsewhere) preferred to sell their produce to private traders in the open market instead...