Halt ongoing negotiations, says open letterWith Prime Minister Manmohan Singh set to hold talks with his counterpart in Brussels on trade and economic issues, a broad civil society alliance on Thursday called on the European Commission and India to immediately halt the ongoing negotiations for an India-EU Free Trade Agreement.The India-EU summit on Friday is likely to give a political mandate for working towards the conclusion of the FTA in...

The Kisan Swaraj Yatra, a rally of farmers marching from Sabarmati in Gujarat to New Delhi, reached Jaipur on Thursday. Participants appealed to chief minister Ashok Gehlot to cancel the MoU that the state signed with Monsanto India Ltd, saying the agreement was anti-farmer. The Kheti Virasat Mission's Kavitha Kurunganti, who is among those leading the rally, claimed the government was surrendering famers' interests over seeds to profit-oriented multinational companies. The...

Members of La Via Campesina and other groups condemn market-based solutionsHector Rodriguez, who runs an alternative radio station in Cancun called Reptil, decided on a novel way to protest the commercialisation of forestry.As hundreds of people marched to the venue of the United Nations Climate Change Conference on Tuesday, Mr. Rodriguez walked up to the posse of Mexican policemen with riot shields and launched into an impassioned plea to help...

Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) would reach city during its Kisan swaraj yatra on Friday to draw the attention to continuing agricultural crisis in India and call for a comprehensive new path for Indian agriculture. Baba Balbir Singh Seenchewal and Manmohan Waris would join the rally here. A public meeting would be organized in front of PAU gate number two. Out of 10 lakh farming families, 72,000 were forced to...

The much-awaited Bill on sexual harassment at workplaces gets the Cabinet nod for presentation in Parliament. ON November 4, the Union Cabinet gave the go-ahead for the enactment of a law on protection of women from sexual harassment at the workplace. Titled Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010, the draft law is basically a new avatar of the ones prepared in 2004. This development has been...