After the suspicion and hostility of a few held up the introduction of Bt brinjal, the prime minister’s economic advisory council has stepped in to provide some good sense. In the context of Bt cotton’s success, the council recommended farm evaluations and a comprehensive risk analysis of GM crops, the results of which should be brought into the public domain as soon as possible. In India, the Bt brinjal case...

India's food inflation rose for the fourth straight week in early February, heightening worries that it was driving up headline inflation past official forecasts and increasing the chance of the central bank pushing up rates. The food price index rose 17.97 percent in the 12 months to February 6, higher than an annual rise of 17.94 percent in the previous week, data released on Thursday showed. The fuel price index rose...

Issues today have to be dressed up in ways certified by the corporate media. They have to be justified not by their importance to the public but by their acceptability to the media, their owners and sponsors.  That the terrible tragedy in Pune demands serious, sober coverage is a truism. One of the side-effects of the ghastly blast has been unintended, though. The orgy of self-congratulation that marked the media...

Anxious to ensure fiscal discipline and manage financial resources for its flagship programmes, UPA-2 is considering deletion of the Above Poverty Line (APL) beneficiaries from the ambit of the proposed food security law. It seems garnering money for UPA's pet promise of "food for all" is turning out to be a big headache as a note circulated for the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) has argued in favour of mandating...

As the country awaits another central government Budget, there is a growing demand for more financial muscle on several fronts. But, is throwing money at complex problems really a solution? A look at the progress of a crucial program of the government, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), indicates that money can’t buy everything. One of the biggest bottlenecks facing policy-makers is that of medical personnel. Recently released data by...