-The Hindu Two years after vociferously arguing for an expansion of the provisions of the National Food Security Act, the BJP in government is bleeding it with a thousand cuts, both fiscal and otherwise When Parliament passed the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in 2013, it had already become one of the most debated pieces of legislation in decades. Those for and against it had fought it out across yards of space...

-Livemint.com Rajan has indicated he will now pause, projecting consumer inflation could rise to about 6% by next January Aurangabad: Prices of many foodstuffs are surging in India, despite a good start to monsoon rains—an unexpected boon for wholesalers, but a major headache for the central bank and a government hoping for its help to reboot the economy. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan has cut interest rates three times...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Retired bureaucrats never retire. Stumped? A look at the information commissions, the transparency watchdogs, all over India reveals that they have become a re-employment arena for bureaucrats. Even though the Supreme Court has advised looking beyond retired civil servants for posts of information commissioners and chief information commissioners, governments prefer retired bureaucrats over candidates with specialisations in other fields. An annual study by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative,...

-AFP Study warns that humans could be among the first victims of the mass extinction Miami: The world is embarking on its sixth mass extinction with animals disappearing about 100 times faster than they used to, scientists warned on Friday, and humans could be among the first victims. Not since the age of the dinosaurs ended 66 million years ago has the planet been losing species at this rapid a rate, said...

-Livemint.com US declares special and differential treatment a ‘threshold’ issue, implying that all developing countries will not be treated on par with regard to farm and fisheries subsidy programmes Geneva: Millions of poor farmers and fishermen in India could lose the benefits of special programmes offered by the government on account of a sustained assault on farm and fisheries subsidies by the US. Washington has declared special and differential treatment (S&DT) a...