From the Middle East to Madagascar, high prices are spawning land grabs and ousting dictators. Welcome to the 21st-century food wars. In the United States, when world wheat prices rise by 75 percent, as they have over the last year, it means the difference between a $2 loaf of bread and a loaf costing maybe $2.10. If, however, you live in New Delhi, those skyrocketing costs really matter: A doubling in...

Policies aiming to combat malnutrition are ignoring an entire generation of women whose overall health has a direct bearing on children’s growth, say advocacy groups and researchers Cradling a frail son on her hip and with a plastic bag stuffed with clothes in one hand, Tara Jadam walked into the rehabilitation centre inside the district hospital here to spend the next two weeks. On a hot afternoon, she has walked several miles...

It's that time of the year when Kishore Lal Singh's eyes almost involuntarily scan the skies. The monsoons are coming. In the months ahead, for this Bhil farmer growing cotton, maize and soya south of the Malwa plateau in Madhya Pradesh, life will again hang on a knife's edge. If it rains well, his two bighas (about four basketball courts) of cotton will yield 1,000 kg. If not, he will...

-The Indian Express   Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was simply stating the obvious on Sunday when he said, “Parliament is supreme.” Neither did he depart from a common understanding of the scheme of things under our Constitution when he clarified that it is Parliament’s right to decide on legislation and nobody else can presume to lay down deadlines for bills to be passed. Yet, such had been the abdication of argument...

Any Indian denied food security rights will be able to seek quick legal redress if the government accepts a suggestion from the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council. The council wants the National Food Commission, a watchdog against any violation of the National Food Security Bill, to be given all the powers of a civil court. Its verdicts are to be binding on the government. Such a measure will help provide quicker and...