Draft report claims investor interest is focussed on countries with weak land governance. A leaked World Bank report into investors from rich nations buying up African farmland has intensified campaigners' fears that the growing trend is marginalising local producers. After a spate of investments in African land by sovereign wealth funds looking for gains on rising commodity prices and by countries such as China worried about their own food security, the World...

Acting with determination and firm action, it should be possible for India to step up its agricultural growth rate to 10 per cent. The 11th Five Year Plan seeks to achieve 4 per cent growth rate in agriculture by the end of the Plan period. The Planning Commission is working towards an overall 9 per cent to 10 per cent growth rate. But the target of 4 per cent growth rate is...

Politicians, from the ruling party and opposition alike, are grappling with the problem of how to effectively communicate with their constituencies on the issue of high food inflation. One had thought it would be easy for the opposition to mount a campaign on rising prices against the ruling coalition, but it appears that inflation and its impact on the political economy is far more complex today than it was 10...

When the Reddy brothers, accused of illegal mining, demonstrate their grip over a state government, most people will rightly bemoan the role that corruption plays in public life. However, vital as it is to tackle the issue, it is also important to view it in perspective. Most people would not have realised, for instance, that India has been improving on at least one corruption score. Transparency International, the Berlin-based body,...

Hopes of an early respite from mounting price pressures have been belied by inflation numbers released on Wednesday. The wholesale price index for June 2010 is up 10.55% against a rise of 10.16% in May. Worse, the number for April has been revised up from 9.59% to a 19-month high of 11.23%. If the same order of revision continues , the June number could well cross 12%, a dangerously high...