-The Hindu While there is reason to be proud of the progress in the production of wheat, rice, cereals and millets, the use of farmland for non-farm purposes is a cause for concern The year 2013 marks the 70th anniversary of the Bengal Famine which resulted in the death of an estimated 1.5 to 3 million children, women and men during 1942-43. A constellation of factors led to this mega-tragedy, such as...

-PTI He was addressing the consultation meet of state food ministers on Food Bill here. With Centre planning to present Food Bill in  the Budget session of Parliament, Food Minister K V Thomas today urged states to evolve a consensus on contentious issues like coverage and identification of beneficiaries. The Food Bill, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2011, aims to give legal right over subsidised foodgrains to two-third of...

-The Guardian By shunning all but organic farming techniques, the Himalayan state will cement its status as a paradigm of sustainability Bhutan plans to become the first country in the world to turn its agriculture completely organic, banning the sales of pesticides and herbicides and relying on its own animals and farm waste for fertilisers. But rather than accept that this will mean farmers of the small Himalayan kingdom of 1.2 million people...

-Kashmir Times If psychologist Ashis Nandy had planned to ignite a potentially ugly controversy at the Jaipur Literary Festival, he couldn't have done better than by insinuating intimate links between corruption and Dalits, Adivasis and Other Backward Classes. After warning that he was about to make a "very undignified" and "almost vulgar" statement, "which will shock you", Nandy said: "It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the...

-The Hindu ‘Al vida’, said Afzal Guru to his executioner, who had himself bid him good bye with the same words a few seconds earlier. And then as the executioner pulled a lever, Afzal’s frame hung from the gallows. “He was dead in a minute, though”, as per the jail norms, the body was kept hanging for a full half hour, said an official who witnessed the hanging. Thereafter Afzal’s body was...