The legacy of Industrial Agriculture With the world population passing the 6 billion mark last October, the debate over our ability to sustain a fast growing population is heating up. Biotechnology advocates in particular are becoming very vocal in their claim that there is no alternative to using genetically modified crops in agriculture if "we want to feed the world". Actually, that quote might be true. It depends what they mean...

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday countered the Opposition attack that the government's policies resulted in price rise and said the steps it took resulted in food inflation coming down. Replying to the debate on the motion on price rise, he said additional revenue measures were also taken to bring down the fiscal deficit and keep the economy in a better shape. The Rajya Sabha later unanimously adopted the motion: “This House...

CELIA ORBOC, a cake-seller in the Philippines, spent her little stipend on a wooden shack, giving her five children a roof over their heads for the first time. In Kyrgyzstan Sharmant Oktomanova spent hers buying flour to feed six children. In Haiti President René Préval praises a dairy co-operative that gives mothers milk and yogurt when their children go to school. These are examples of the world’s favourite new anti-poverty device,...

Plagued by power shortage but determined to find a way out, 10 villages in Karnataka have switched to solar power. Kerosene lamps and ‘chullahs’ are now things of the past. Anitha Pailoor documents this journey from darkness to light.d to light It’s half past eight in a tiny village called Neeralakatti, 15 km from Dharwad where Mangala is sitting at home, busy grading farm-picked brinjals as she has to send...

Amipur may be a small dot along the national highway from Patna to Nawada, but its ambitions are big. In the 50-odd households in the village, sparsely populated and rife with an uneasy quiet, most men have left for work outside Bihar. Siyaram Chauhan is the one who returned. He was rescued last month by the state government officials from a brick kiln in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich where he worked as...