After increasing slowly and steadily from historic lows, world rice prices tripled in just six months during 2007-08. The price surge caused much anxiety because so many of the world’s poor are rice consumers. And it caught many by surprise as market fundamentals were sound. Indeed, it was government policies, rather than changes in the production and consumption of rice, that drove the surge. This suggests that improved government policies...

Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory minimum wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...

India is understood to have told Pakistan that it is ready to lift the ban on cotton exports if the latter resumes its onion exports through rail and land routes. Official sources in the Commerce Ministry said this was conveyed to Islamabad by the External Affairs Ministry. “The Indian side has conveyed to the Pakistani counterparts that it was ready to revisit the cotton export ban and ceiling issues, if the...

Every passing day makes it clear that the proposed food security law may not come by for a while. One report quoting the Planning Commission even suggested that it can be expected only in 2012. This Twelfth Plan (2012-17) launch has support from the concerned dual Ministry of Agriculture as well as Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution. In that eventuality it does mean a surge in food insecurity.A dispassionate...

The government must stop dilly-dallying over the project and apply the law regardless of the fact that it is India's single largest foreign investment proposal. TWO giant metallurgical projects, both in Orissa. Both promoted by big multinational corporations with tremendous influence. Both opposed by environmental and tribal rights activists because they would displace vulnerable people and destroy fragile ecosystems. Both backed strongly by State-level and national lobbies that claim they...