Yes, food prices are rising but more competition is not the answer — it's time to stop over-consumption. Slowly, surely, a new mixture of consensus and fault lines is emerging about world food. On the one hand, there is agreement we are entering a new era in which basic agricultural commodity prices are rising after decades of falling. This will hit the poorest hardest, as an Oxfam report this week on...

Oxfam, an international confederation of 15 human rights organisations fighting poverty and injustice, launched a new campaign here on Wednesday for a Hunger-free world even as it announced that the number of hungry people the world over has crossed the billion mark and one in four of the world's hungry people live in India. Despite doubling the size of its economy between 1990 and 2005, the number of people in India...

-Rediff.com   India, home to a quarter of the world's hungry people with nearly 40 per cent of the population malnourished, is facing an unprecedented food crisis, international charity organisation Oxfam said on Wednesday. "Despite the doubling of the size of its economy since 1990, the number of hungry people in India has increased by 65 million because economic development excluded the rural poor and social protection schemes failed to reach them," Oxfam...

Is it the end of the road for the Lokpal panel? Talks between the government and social activists could be headed for a collapse after they disagreed on all key issues – Anna Hazare's team has threatened a walkout if the prime minister is exempted from the bills ambit. Fearing a repeat of the Anna movement, the government is trying to persuade Baba Ramdev to call off his Hunger strike that...

Jairam Ramesh's order of May 6 rescinding his earlier stop-work notice with regard to the Maheshwar dam surprises many. ON May 6, Jairam Ramesh, the Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests, made a confession while responding to a questioner at a public meeting. He said he had been under “pressure” to overlook environmental violations while clearing certain projects. “Regularisation of illegality is a peculiar Indian characteristic. First you...