-The Hindustan Times As a teary-eyed World Trade Organisation (WTO) director-general Roberto Azevedo hailed the landmark trade deal at Bali, Indonesia, on Saturday after five days of gruelling negotiations, it was India, led by commerce minister Anand Sharma, who won plaudits for successfully piloting the grand-bargain for drawing up a permanent solution to food subsidies. The deal also makes it mandatory for member countries - as part of a trade facilitation agreement...

-The United Nations A United Nations independent rights expert called today for policy changes that will allow developing countries the freedom to use their reserves to help secure the right to food without the threat of sanctions under current World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. "Trade rules must be shaped around the food security policies that developing countries need, rather than policies having to tiptoe around WTO rules," said Olivier De Schutter, Special...

The Pension Parishad is holding a dharna in Delhi for the rights of elderly since 26 November. It has demanded that a Universal and Non Contributory Old Age Pension System should be established with a minimum dignified amount of monthly pension not less than 50% of minimum wage or Rs 2000/- per month, whichever is higher. Despite several rounds of talk held between the campaign leaders and the Government in...

-Down to Earth Expresses concern over alcohol brands being advertised in violation of rules India is emerging as the favourite destination for alcohol promotion of marketing companies. Their new targets are women and youth, who at present comprise a very small percentage of alcohol consumers in India. These are the observations made by a report-Alcohol Marketing and Regulatory Policy Environment in India-put out by the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). It...

-The Business Standard Currently wages are linked to CPI AL Mahendra Dev who heads the new committee set up by the Rural Development Ministry to determine a new index for NREGA wages said that his job is not to engineer an increase in wages to suit political interests. My job is to find a suitable index for NREGA wages based on which a new baseline wage can be fixed for 2014,...