Amid policy battles over food production, energy resources and economic decline, one untapped natural resource that is guaranteed to boost production on a global scale has been stubbornly overlooked – the power of women in the labour force. According to the World Bank's 2012 World Development Report (WDR) "Gender Equality and Development", ensuring equal access for women farmers would increase maize yields by 11 to 16 percent in Malawi and 17...

-The Times of India   Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday flagged amendments to land acquisition law, allowing more foreign investment in retail trading and insurance and introduction of good and services tax (GST) as the key reforms agenda of the government. "I think the first thing is to sustain the momentum of growth that we have built," PM said during a meeting with a group of editors. But a key...

  Can we agree in this country on a floor of human dignity below which we will not allow any human being to fall? No child, woman or man in this land will sleep hungry. No person shall be forced to sleep under the open sky. No parent shall send their child out to work instead of to school. And no one shall die because they cannot afford the cost of...

India’s FTAs pip generic drugs production Lot More For Less     * Generic drugs from India play a major role as antiretroviral drugs across the developing world     * A 2010 study says 80% of the medicines used by donor-funded programmes to treat people with HIV were sourced from India     * It’s cut down treatment costs drastically, from $10,000 to $80     * Stronger IP regimes may hamper production of generics *** The right of...

-Reuters   The world's trading nations are succumbing to protectionism in the wake of the global financial crisis, limiting exports of food and raw materials and installing new import barriers, the WTO warned on Friday. Commodities export restrictions from Indian cotton and Ukrainian wheat to Chinese rare earths and coal are "not without hazards", the World Trade Organization said in the report that assesses the protectionist behaviour of more than 180 nations. The...