Edible oil imports have surged to a record 9.24 million tonnes last year and were estimated to be nearly Rs 38,000 crore. They have emerged as the third most important import item, next only to petroleum products and gold. India is now the world’s largest importer of cooking fats, meeting more than half of its requirement through overseas supplies. Considering the country’s huge and fast-growing demand for cooking oils, such...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Ashish Bose, Demographer interviewed by Shobhan Saxena
In 1985, Ashish Bose coined the term BIMARU while preparing a report on national population growth rate for Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. At the time, he was a professor at Delhi's Institute of Economic Growth. Ever since, BIMARU has been used to describe the four northern states that are seen as symptomatic of what's wrong with India.Shobhan Saxena asks Bose, 80, if Bihar is proof that BIMARU is history. Bihar...
More »Going Hungry in the Richest Nation on Earth by Matthew O Berger
While many U.S. residents prepare for their annual Thanksgiving feast Thursday, one in six are at risk of hunger – including a quarter of all children in the country. Globally, 925 million people, or a little less than 15 percent of the world population, is undernourished. Ironically, Washington's efforts to alleviate hunger abroad may be more successful than at home, analysts say. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's estimate last week that 49...
More »Hunger alarm by TK Rajalakshmi
The Global Hunger Index report paints a gloomy picture of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. WITH the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals just five years away, the 2010 Global Hunger Index report prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) paints a gloomy picture of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Some 29 countries in these regions, it says, have levels of hunger that are alarming or extremely alarming....
More »FAO warns of further increase in global food prices by Gargi Parsai
Stability in markets will be determined by size of next year's crop The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned about a further increase in global food prices in 2011 if there is no significant increase in production of major food crops. In the latest edition of its “Food Outlook” report, the agency observed that the rise in global prices, all of which was accruing in the second half of 2010, owing...
More »