Today, the Supreme Court of India will hear arguments in what is emerging as a national disgrace: One of the world’s largest stockpiles of foodgrain going to rot and rodent because the government lacks the vision, ability and commitment to either store it properly or distribute it to the poor. Let me recap what I reported on the front-page of this paper last month: About a third of India’s grain reserves,...

Complexity and unsolved problems are at the very heart of the sustainability challenge, and at the very heart of M.S. Swaminathan's thinking and essays. In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus offered the piercing insight that geometric population growth would inevitably outstrip food production, leaving society destitute and hungry. Since that time, our optimism of beating the “Malthusian curse” has waxed and waned. Few people in modern history have done more to help...

For your sake, and earth’s sake, have fish instead of mutton. If you are truly climate-friendly, go bananas. According to a study that analysed greenhouse gas emissions associated with a set of common Indian food items, fish is a superior alternative to mutton, not just for humans but also for the planet’s health, while bananas are the most climate-friendly. The study, by Scientists at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi,...

An outbreak of papaya mealy bug has affected hundreds of acres of papaya grown in and around Kannivadi and Reddiyarchatram regions in Dindigul district. Since the bug has caused severe damage to the crops, farmers have incurred huge losses. The mealy bug is a polyphagous sucking pest that infests crops such as cotton, papaya, tapioca, mulberry, jatropha and other cultivable crops. The pest sucks the sap of the plant and weakens...

Bangalore-based Foundation of Biotechnology Awareness and Education (FBAE) has asked the government to lift the indefinite moratorium imposed on commercial introduction of Bt brinjal in the country by the ministry of environment and forest (MoEF). It stated that the indefinite moratorium has created a 'regulatory uncertainty' on the development of all genetically engineered crops which are at the various stages of development in the country. Stating that the environment ministry is strongly...