-Financial Chronicle India's independence in 1947 had the great Bengal famine as its backdrop. During the Bengal famine of 1942-43, over three million children, women and men died of starvation. India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, therefore, said in 1947, "Everything else can wait; but not agriculture". This commitment led to the initiation of several programmes in the field of agriculture, such as extension of irrigation facilities, establishment of seed corporations,...

-The United Nations As a result of the increased production of genetically modified crops worldwide, the United Nations food agency warns in a ground-breaking survey that an increasing number of incidents of low levels of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are being reported in traded food and feed. "The incidents have led to trade disruptions between countries with shipments of grain, cereal and other crops being blocked by importing countries and destroyed or...

-The Business Standard The recent US-India friction over trade is being driven by Big Pharma Apart from the deterioration of the business environment generally, which impacts both domestic and foreign investors, retrospective taxation has figured most prominently in the media as the principal cause of growing scepticism among foreign investors. Entirely missing from the discourse has been an equally potent factor with wholly foreign origins: the hijacking of the economic policy...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Women scholars, politicians and activists from across South Asia expressed concern over escalation of violence, fundamentalism and increased militarization of response to people's movements and urged inclusion of women in peace building. At a seminar organized by UN Women, SAFHR and IDRC on Tuesday, Rebeca Tavares of UN Women said, "Women and men experience war differently. There is a need to convincingly demonstrate that engaging women...

-Deccan Herald Behind all the ostentation, glitz and glamour of the recently concluded mega ‘Progressive Agriculture Summit' in Punjab lies the harsh reality of farmer suicides and the burgeoning agrarian crisis that this border state reels under. A state government commissioned study conducted by three prominent universities in Punjab lay bare the magnitude of the crisis. On an average estimate, three persons committed suicide every two days in last one decade in...