India faces the challenge of inappropriate use of antibiotics while Bharat copes with poor access to treatment, resulting in a policy conundrum and inaction. India was recently in the news for the wrong reasons. The serious threat posed by the newly discovered microbe, NDM-1 (New Delhi metallo--lactamase-1), resistant to many antibiotics, triggered alarm and panic. Predictions that the country will not meet the millennium development goal for child mortality caused dismay....

With food inflation hovering in the double digit bracket for most part of 2010-11 and the aam aadmi up in arms, all hopes were pinned on the Union Budget 2011-12 for giving a new fillip to the farm sector. But the budget has disappointed most, in spite of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee allocating Rs 14,744 crore for agriculture. “An increase of only 2.6 per cent over last year makes the...

Several species of fish unique only to the waters of Kashmir are in danger of extinction due to high levels of pollution, environmentalists say. Limnologist and professor A. R. Yousuf, a specialist in fresh water lakes and rivers, says the excessive and unchecked use of pollution-causing herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers of sub-standard quality dumped into Kashmir waters is the main threat to the survival of these fish species. Yousuf’s list of endangered...

Fish Consumption has reached an all-time high and more people than ever are employed in or depend on the fisheries sector, according to a new United Nations report, which also warns that global fish stocks have not improved. “That there has been no improvement in the status of stocks is a matter of great concern,” said Richard Grainger, senior fisheries expert at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and one...

The countrywide share of corporate retail in food distribution tripled in the past four years when retail food prices showed the greatest increase. THE dramatic increase in food inflation over the past two years has been associated with several surprises. One major surprise has been how the top economic policymakers in the country have responded to it. The initial response was one of apparent disbelief, followed very quickly by the...