-The Hindustan Times The UPA’s record of policy flip-flops endures. The latest instance is a ban on exports of cotton that seems headed for revocation less than a week after it was announced. The commerce ministry’s line that India has exported more cotton this season than it can afford to without hurting consumption at home does not wash with partners of the ruling alliance or with the political bosses of cotton...
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Economic growth and food security depend on healthy farm sector, whose pillar, the farmer, is still neglected by Ajay S Shriram
In India, agriculture and allied sector is the source of income for over 60% of rural population and its contribution to GDP has been consistently coming down and currently stands at 14.3%. For the Indian economy to grow at the rate of 8-9%, the growth rate of agriculture sector has to be more than 4%. The critical role of agriculture in the economy highlights the need for a larger investment in...
More »Government blinks, cotton export ban to go today
-The Economic Times The government has decided to lift the ban on cotton exports from Monday, just a week after imposing it, buckling under pressure from farmers, traders and politicians. "Keeping in view the facts, the interests of farmers, industry and trade, a balanced view has been considered by the group of ministers to roll back the ban and a formal order will be made public on Monday by the government," Commerce...
More »U.N. Human Rights Council Exhorted to Defend Peasants’ Rights by Isolda Agazzi
Decades after peasants’ networks have advocated for a new legal instrument to protect the rights of small farmers to land, seeds, traditional agricultural knowledge and freedom to determine the prices of their production, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) may decide to start drafting a declaration on peasants’ rights next week. "The idea of an international declaration on peasants' rights comes from our (base) because many small farmers don’t have...
More »The dream that failed
-The Economist Nuclear power will not go away, but its role may never be more than marginal, says Oliver Morton THE LIGHTS ARE not going off all over Japan, but the nuclear power plants are. Of the 54 reactors in those plants, with a combined capacity of 47.5 gigawatts (GW, a thousand megawatts), only two are operating today. A good dozen are unlikely ever to reopen: six at Fukushima Dai-ichi, which suffered...
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