Participants at a United Nations summit today outlined a 10-year plan to support the world’s most vulnerable countries overcome poverty, calling on the private sector to play a greater role in the fight, urging wealthy nations to step up their aid commitments and demanding the elimination of many trade barriers. The Istanbul Programme of Action to spur development and economic growth was made public at the end of the Fourth UN...

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has asked the Centre to ensure payment of the statutory minimum wages to Domestic Workers. In a note sent on May 4 to the government, which is framing a national policy for Domestic Workers, the council asked it to enshrine the right to pay without gender discrimination as laid down in the Equal Remuneration Act of 1976. Domestic Workers were on a par with other workers...

Massive grain procurement to meet the requirements under the proposed national food security law could drive out the private sector and have larger implications on the state of the domestic procurement market, a study on food and nutritional security has warned. Apart from impacting exports and cereal price in the open market, rising public procurement will only make it costly to buy, store, transport and distribute grain, the study said, adding...

-ToI   The government patched together an intricate—and flawed—fertiliser system over the last 40 years. It now wants to dismantle that monster. The challenge before it is to preserve its pro-agriculture and pro-poor objective, while correcting the flaws that crept in, reports M Rajshekhar If it all goes to plan, buying or selling fertiliser will never be the same for the 120-odd companies that make up this Rs 1,00,000 crore industry or...

Endosulfan, the pesticide which is widely believed to be responsible for thousands of deaths, diseases and devastation, was able to save its own life largely because of India’s questionable efforts at global forums. The controversial pesticide has been in news for a long time because of its harmful effects on humans, wild life and the environment. Obviously the $100 million industry is going out of the way to defend the...