-PTI   India’s proposed National Food Security Bill has the potential to become a benchmark for the rest of the world to follow, the NGO Oxfam India and UK-based Institute of Development Studies (IDS) has said. The proposed Food Security Bill aims at providing legal entitlement over subsidised foodgrain to the poor. The Bill was introduced in Parliament in December 2011 and the same has been referred to the Standing Committee. “India is taking...

-Deccan Herald India’s proposed National Food Security Bill can become a benchmark for many countries to follow, said UK-based Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and Oxfam India at a conference in Delhi on Tuesday. The Bill was introduced in Parliament in December 2011 and was referred to a standing committee. Legal entitlement It aims to provide legal entitlement of subsidised foodgrains to the poor, and is likely to cover nearly 70 per cent...

-The Guardian 'Pathway for a sustainable future' declared, but Greenpeace says summit was failure of epic proportions Amid doubt, disappointment and division, the world's governments came together in Rio on Friday to declare "a pathway for a sustainable century". At the close of the Rio+20 Earth Summit, heads of state and ministers from more than 190 nations signed off on a plan to set global sustainable development goals and other measures to...

John Vidal, who was in Rio for the '92 Earth summit, looks back at that momentous event, and how the 2012 version compares Helicopters thundered up and down the chic Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. Tanks guarded the bridges and tunnels. The favelas were in lockdown, schools closed and supermarkets stood empty. Unexpectedly, George H W Bush, the 41st US president, flush with success at the collapse of communism, had arrived in...

By recognising the rights of the transgender community, the state is not doling out largesse; it is only performing its duty under the Constitution They came beautifully dressed, some a tad brightly, but all beautifully and proudly, there was much chatter, and a lot of sisterhood. It was the public hearing of transgenders at Delhi. An excluded group must definitely feel cheered in a gathering, where the members of that group...