-Outlook Scientist and longtime activist against genetically modified BT seeds, Dr. Vandana Shiva, talks about why BT has a devastating fallout. A sudden pest attack has ruined cotton crops in large parts of Punjab, bringing biotech, or BT Cotton back into focus. Farmers who used bio-fertilisers in the Malwa region of the state are said to be safe from this latest pestilence. But those growing BT cotton have lost everything. There...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Militant guns routinely draw blood here. Ceasefires have been called and aborted. But the troubled Northeast is still the safest for two vulnerable sections - women and children. So says the National Crime Records Bureau in its report for the year 2014. Women, according to the report, are far more safe here than they are in, say, Bengal or Uttar Pradesh. Except Assam, which contributed to more than five per...

-The Pioneer India's water distribution and consumption systems must be sustainable, drought-proofed, and adapted to climate change. Then the country can move from ‘drought-relief' status to a position where it has relief from droughts The Indian Meteorological Department is still unsure of the timing and the intensity of El Niño, further raising the grim prospect of insufficient monsoons and an imminent drought poised to affect many parts of the country. According...

-Vikalp The recently concluded Bali Ministerial marks an important milestone in the WTO negotiations. The National Food Security Act, 2013 in India has brought the issue of food security and hunger within developing countries to the forefront of the negotiations in the WTO. In this context, the G-33 proposal addressing the issue of non-recognition of food security concerns of developing countries within the global trade rules reflected a meaningful unity within...

-The Hindu     India wilted under pressure from US: Right to Food Campaign Civil society groups are "extremely disappointed" about India accepting a peace clause with conditionality on its food and farm subsidies at the Bali World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial with no assured mechanism for finding a permanent solution. They are unhappy that India has opened up its farm and food domestic policies, programmes and mechanisms to international scrutiny with large data and...