-The United Nations A United Nations independent rights expert called today for policy changes that will allow developing countries the freedom to use their reserves to help secure the right to food without the threat of sanctions under current World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. "Trade rules must be shaped around the food security policies that developing countries need, rather than policies having to tiptoe around WTO rules," said Olivier De Schutter, Special...

-Live Mint Our food procurement policies may be lopsided but there is no link between the food security law and free trade The upcoming World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in Bali has attracted considerable attention in India because of its repercussions on our food policy. It is feared that the recently passed food security law will breach the negotiated limits on the aggregate measure of support (AMS) to farmers. AMS is...

-Down to Earth Half of India's population defecates in the open. In all probability, they will continue to do so for the next 10 years By the time you read this article, some 600 million Indians must have taken that first call of nature. But for most, it must have been very unusual: to take that hesitant and humiliating step out of their homes to defecate in the open. Everyday, an...

-The Hindu The Bali ministerial conference in December presents a crucial opportunity to bring about changes in WTO rules Ending hunger and poverty requires major national policy initiatives in developing countries. The United Nations Secretary-General has articulated a broad zero hunger vision, endorsed and embraced as a priority by national leaders in many developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Production of food by small cultivators in developing countries has a...

-The Asian Age Reserve Bank deputy governor K.C. Chakraborty has finally set the record straight on what is well known in left-wing development circles: that Corporate India's loans waived by banks are more (over Rs. 1 lakh crore in the past 13 years) than farm loans to the tune of Rs. 60,000 crores written off under the Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme. More revealing is that medium and large units have...