-The Hindu     Well-known feminist Kamla Bhasin says that Indian men will have to change, not to support women but to save themselves from being brutalised by centuries of exposure to patriarchy. "Mian, aap mein kuch kami hai" (Gentleman, there is something wrong with you)." Some months ago, when Kamla Bhasin, well-known feminist from Delhi, came up with this retort to Aamir Khan on his headline-grabbing tele-show Satyameva Jayate on saying that he...

-Reuters ROME: Food prices are set to remain high and volatility in food markets could increase in coming months, a senior economist at the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation told Reuters on Thursday. "Prices are sustained. It is highly unlikely we will see a normalisation of prices anytime soon," said Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at FAO. "Volatility is not going to go away, if anything it may even intensify further in coming months,"...

-Frontline A recession-hit world is only just waking up to the prospect of the coming food crisis resulting in a period of political turmoil with unexpected consequences.  For the third time in five years, the world is braced for another food crisis. Bad weather conditions are leading to projections of major production shortfalls in some of the world’s leading food suppliers. Substantially reduced access and sharp price increases are, therefore, expected to...

—AFP World farm production must rise 60 per cent by 2050 to meet the needs of a growing population but this has to happen in a “more sustainable way”, the U.N. food agency FAO and the OECD said on Wednesday. “It’s mostly going to be about productivity”, said Angel Gurria, head of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), at a press conference in Rome, explaining that farmland area would increase...

-The United Nations The world needs to take a hard look at speculation on the financial markets and its potential impact on food price volatility, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today. “Excessive food price volatility, especially at the speed at which price swings have been occurring since 2007, has negative impacts on poor consumers and poor producers alike all over the world,” FAO’s Director-General, José...