-The Indian Express I recently witnessed protests in Berlin, against industrialised farming and the planned free-trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, under the banner "We Are Fed Up". Trade issues resonate across Europe, but in India, farMers are oblivious to the inevitable consequences of trade agreements. However, the government seems keen to address issues related to farMers. Yet, success on the farm front can be delusional if...

-The Financial Express   Given that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is now a decade old, and there have been repeated allegations of it being a breeding ground for corruption, a thorough review of it is called for. Though Nitin Gadkari's plan to limit the scheme to the poorest districts and to change the amount reserved for labour payments did not go down well when he was the...

-Business Standard Sensible suggestions from Shanta Kumar panel on food security The Shanta Kumar committee on food sector reforms has made a slew of recommendations - many of which, even if controversial, make sense. Apart from suggesting downsizing of the unwieldy, inefficient and corruption-ridden Food Corporation of India (FCI) by outsourcing many of its tasks to the states and other public- and private-sector bodies, the panel has laid out certain amendments to...

-The Tribune In India, mounting demographic pressures are leading to soil degradation. About 17 per cent of the global human and 11 per cent of livestock population is being sustained on a Mere 2 per cent of the world's land and 4 per cent of its freshwater resources. The year 2015 has been designated as the International Year of the Soils by the United Nations. Recently, December 5 was commemorated as World...

-The Hindu Business Line Mumbai: A fresh bout of opposition has been filed against Gilead's patent application on hepatitis c drug sofosbuvir. This comes close on the heels of a spate of developments involving the drug, last month. Non-government organisation Sankalp Rehabilitation Trust, represented by the Lawyers Collective has filed a pre-grant opposition on the drug in the Delhi patent office. (A pre-grant opposition allows interested parties to oppose a patent application...