-The United Nations Amid economic crises, climatic shocks, and high and volatile food prices in a world of plenty where nearly 870 million people still go hungry, the United Nations today marked World Food Day by highlighting agricultural cooperatives as vital weapon in the war on poverty and hunger. “Owned by their members, they can generate employment, alleviate poverty, and empower poor and marginalized groups in rural areas, especially women, to drive...

-The Times of India The government is set to step up its push for cash transfer of subsidies and adopt it as a policy doctrine in the run-up to elections, with two pilot projects validating the assumption that it would lead to significant savings for the government while enhancing benefits for users. A pilot project for cooking gas in Mysore run by state-run oil companies saw the number of connections dropping 40%...

-The Economist A new form of radical centrist politics is needed to tackle inequality without hurting economic growth BY THE end of the 19th century, the first age of globalisation and a spate of new inventions had transformed the world economy. But the “Gilded Age” was also a famously unequal one, with America’s robber barons and Europe’s “Downton Abbey” classes amassing huge wealth: the concept of “conspicuous consumption” dates back to 1899....

-The Economist Growing inequality is one of the biggest social, economic and political challenges of our time. But it is not inevitable, says Zanny Minton Beddoes IN 1889, AT the height of America’s first Gilded Age, George Vanderbilt II, grandson of the original railway magnate, set out to build a country estate in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. He hired the most prominent architect of the time, toured the chateaux...

-The Indian Express The Supreme Court on Thursday gave one month’s time to the Centre to come up with the final version of the drug pricing policy. Maintaining that the Centre must follow a pricing formula that will prevent the prices of the drugs from shooting up, the SC agreed to wait till mid-November for the Cabinet to come up with its final version of the new pricing policy. “Drugs prescribed by doctors......