The disastrous effect of the state throwing up its hands and retreating is most starkly visible in agriculture . Remember: agriculture involves 70 per cent of the country's population , generates about 56 per cent of national income, 64 per cent of total expenditure and about one third of total savings. So, any neglect translates into gigantic costs. And the central crisis in agriculture — production barely matching a depressed...

There was a perception that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MHNREGA) will not work in this district. But a year down the line, many families are seeing it as a godsend opportunity to improve their livelihood by developing their small land holdings through this scheme, said DK District NREGA ombudsman Sheena Shetty. Taking charge as the ombudsman on Thursday at the zilla panchayat office here, Shetty told...

There is an interesting debate on food security and we should get the Planning Commission’s perspective on this. But as I write this, the Planning Commission Web site still does not have the mid-term appraisal, so Yojana Bhavan must still be polishing it. This column has, over time, taken the position that the food security programme is really important and a country growing as fast as India simply cannot ignore...

When National Highways Authority of India engineer Satyendra Dubey was killed in 2003 after he wrote a letter to then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he was killed for his disclosure, despite the explicit appeal that his identity be kept secret. His death strengthened the growing sense across the world that such truth-tellers needed legislation to keep them safe (Time magazine declared “2002” the year of the whistleblower, after giant corporate...

Interdependence and knowledge-sharing are keys to global food security, and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is the only legally binding treaty that promotes this, according to Xuan Li, Treaty Support Officer. Speaking to TheHindu on Monday, Ms. Xuan Li said 125 countries were signatories to the treaty that allowed access to the developments to individuals and corporations. The treaty provided access and benefit-sharing to 64 important...