It's the land of freedom, of bright lights and burgers, where daring entrepreneurs arrive from across the planet in search of fame and fortune. The United States of America - the world's melting pot - has been a symbol of hope for centuries, but behind this vision of wealth and wonder is a tale often untold. Food security, lack of water rights and unemployment might sound like the type of problems...

The promise made by UPA II that it will ensure food security for Indians through legislation that guarantees the Right to Food seems, in its view, to have been an error. In a multi-stage process that reflects the pulls and pressures within the policy-making elite, the Food Security Bill has been diluted so much that it marks a reversal rather than an advance compared to the status quo. Let us...

The government has a plan to reach welfare to the poor without wasting money. It wants to put hard cash in their hands instead of spending on welfare programmes. To begin with, it wants to end the public distribution system of food grain and give money directly to the people. Its logic: the new system of cash transfer will plug leakages and save an enormous amount of money. But is it...

A recent newspaper report noted that the Union Government had gazetted the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification 2011 and received strong criticism from organisations that work for protecting coastal ecosystems and fight for the rights and welfare of fisherfolk. About 20 organisations working in the field of protecting fishermen's rights and lawyers backing them have taken strong exception to the notification. This is on the ground that the new notification,...

Three farmers in three districts of Madhya Pradesh Monday attempted to commit suicide, in a grim reminder of the continuing crisis the state's farmers find themselves in after their crops were destroyed by frost. Ramji Marawi (28), a farmer of Saliwada village in Jabalpur, allegedly took poison along with his two sons Manish (8) and Manoj (4). They have been admitted to the Jabalpur Medical College Hospital, police said. 'For three days...