On the eve of a decision on the draft food security law by the Sonia Gandhi headed National Advisory Council, the government unveiled a blueprint for a complete revamp of the public distribution system, or PDS. State food ministers on Tuesday approved time bound changes in the PDS to plug the weaknesses in the system to create the appropriate delivery mechanism for meeting legal commitments of the proposed law. The...

One in four corporate titans worldwide view biodiversity loss as a threat to their business growth, according to a new United Nations-backed study released today. It found that more than half of chief executive officers surveyed in Latin America and 45 per cent of their counterparts in Africa see biodiversity decline as detrimental to profits, compared to less than 20 per cent in Western Europe. The publication also found that business...

Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto turned classical capitalism on its head with his trickle-up theory: that if you create wealth at the bottom of the pyramid, it will find its way up. de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, speaks to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk the Talk on the need for the poor to be able to participate in the global economy...

India is incredible (after shining), with the fastest growth rate, an emerging demographic dividend and innovative brains for the globe. But the vast majority in rural India — employed in agriculture, small-scale and tiny industries, self-employed, and with no assets — does not find it so. This government, claiming inclusive growth for the grossly deprived and poor, has not taken actions to bring down prices of essential food items, unprecedented...

Earlier this week, India's opposition parties came together in a rare show of unity to take to the streets in cities across the country. They protested against the government's recent decision to raise fuel prices after it scrapped its subsidy of petrol prices in an effort to cut the budget deficit. Supporters of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party joined hands with their ideological rivals among the Communists to paralyse normal life in...