-The Indian Express It took the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) six years, 18 drafts and a prod from the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to finalise the Guidelines for Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) this August. Three months on, it is yet to notify the rules that would allow it to collect from domestic and foreign companies 0.1-1 per cent of their ex-factory gross sales of products using biological resources and traditional...

-Down to Earth Persisting with the current institutional arrangement will do more harm than good The manner in which the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has agreed to divert 4,578 hectares (ha) of prime forestland to construct the 3,000 MW Dibang multipurpose project (DMP) has yet again convinced me of the need to replace the present system of granting forest clearances. FAC, in its...

-Economic and Political Weekly The cultivation of geneticallymodified crops, especially food crops, is not just a domestic issue; it has an impact on global food trade as well. Sukhpal Singh (sukhpal@iimahd.ernet.in) is at the Centre for Management in Agriculture, IIM, Ahmedabad. There is no doubt that the application of biotechnology can lead to yield improvement, cost cutting and lower crop losses, besides providing more processable raw materials and designer products. That is why...

-United Nations The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today kicked-off a two-day meeting focusing on civil society's role in giving a voice to the hungry and how best to improve a multi-stakeholder approach to food security and nutrition policy development at national, regional and global levels. "Reaching consensus is important because it will make us move faster and because we need results in the short term," said Graziano da Silva,...

-The Financial Express A mechanism is needed to compensate farmers for not exercising their right to sell productive land but continue to grow foodgrains. India finds itself in a piquant situation. While its population, and with it the number of poor, is growing, its cultivable land is not only shrinking, more worryingly, the economic returns of the agricultural use are diminishing vis-a-vis non-agricultural use. The situation may not be alarming right now,...