-The Times of India NEW DELHI: With the general elections just four months away and rollout of UPA's flagship Food Security Act at stake, commerce minister Anand Sharma is facing a challenge that few of his eight predecessors who attended WTO ministerial meetings have faced. Already, there is a demand to block a compromise formula or a "peace clause" that will prevent any WTO member from seeking penalties against a developing country...

-The Times of India PATIALA: A new study has revealed that over 34% of marginal farmers in Punjab are still living below poverty line, denting the tall claims of SAD-BJP government on uplift of the farmers, who are considered the traditional vote bank of the over nine-decade-old Shiromani Akali Dal. Besides marginal farmers, the study conducted by the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, has also brought to the fore that over 20%...

-The Hindu The Gujarat snooping incident should be used as an opportunity to ask how the government has assumed the power to order such invasive, unchecked surveillance. On November 15, a pair of investigative portals released a set of audio transcripts depicting an extraordinarily invasive and scrupulous surveillance of a young woman by the Gujarat Police. Its implications, limited as they may appear to those who consider privacy a besmirched value, in...

-The Guardian Developing countries threaten to walk out of UN talks in Warsaw over failure to reach agreement on financial recompense The proposal by developing countries that their wealthier counterparts be held financially responsible for the damage incurred by extreme climate events such as typhoon Haiyan and droughts in Africa has become the most explosive issue at the UN's climate change conference in Warsaw. With neither side prepared to give way on...

-The Hindu India needs an early agreement, and also adequate atmospheric "space" in terms of allowed carbon emissions to pursue its development goals. It needs to take a proactive stance on this By all accounts, no dramatic developments are to be expected from the 19th edition of the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that started in Warsaw last week. But it is generally...