-Live Mint Anand Sharma urges updating of rules under agriculture deal to fix ‘inherent flaws', help developing countries New Delhi: India on Monday rejected the World Trade Organization's (WTO) offer on food security rules in its present form ahead of the biannual ministerial conference of the multilateral trade body beginning Tuesday in Bali, further hardening India's position on the issue. The present draft text prepared in Geneva provides developing countries temporary relief...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Even as commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma sought to push an interim solution or a "peace clause" that will prevent WTO members from seeking penalties from countries such as India for breach of subsidy cap, the Opposition parties and farmer groups have asked the government to reject the solution, arguing that it is not in the country's interests. At next week's Bali ministerial meeting,...

-The Indian Express On the surface, the sugar crisis in Uttar Pradesh may seem to be inching closer to a resolution. But cane farmers may have unwittingly mortgaged their land, signing up for crop loans from public sector banks, with the money so raised being used by the mills to pay arrears of a different set of farmers. This model, of mills rotating working capital loans from banks, to deliver pending payouts...

-Women's Feature Service The ‘gola' or grain basket, built on elevated ground in Goyadham village in Sunderban's South 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, is central to the food security of several households here. As Sofia Bibi, 45, says, "The grain is protected from the recurrent flooding and storms and we are ensured of a regular supply when there is no agricultural work during the months of September to November and March to...

-IPS News UNITED NATIONS, Sep 25 2013 (IPS) - Reducing the proportion of undernourished people by half until 2015 was one of the Millennium Development Goals that the international community set in 2000. It will not be reached: At least 870 million people worldwide - and one child in five - still go hungry; this in a world where we already produce enough food today to feed nine billion people in...