The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have warned that farm commodity prices, especially foodgrains, may rise by as much as 40 per cent by the end of this decade. This warning must be taken seriously given its implications for food insecurity. FAO’s Agricultural Outlook 2010-2019 projects prices of wheat, coarse grains and dairy products rising by 15 to 40 per cent...

The Group of Ministers (GoM) on Bhopal gas disaster is understood to have decided on Monday to recommend enhanced compensation to the families of those dead in the gas leak and to those debilitated permanently or partially. Sources said the compensation would be to the tune of Rs. 10 lakh for the kin of those dead. Those with permanent disability would be compensated to the tune of Rs five lakh...

They are based on faulty medical categorisation and miscalculated figures: survivors' organisations The report on the Bhopal gas leak submitted by the Group of Ministers (GoM) to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday drew mixed reactions from survivors' organisations here, which have decided to write to him to allow them a hearing at a Cabinet meet to be held on Friday. While welcoming it as “at least some hope after all,”...

Even as it pursues its case to make Dow Chemical pay for the clean-up of the Bhopal gas leak site, the Centre has decided to spend about Rs. 250 crore towards complete remediation. The entire process of decontaminating the one million tonnes of toxic waste at the site will be completed in two to three years, according to sources at the fourth meeting of the current Group of Ministers (GoM) on...

Development models that focus attention on the poor while expanding job opportunities, increased government spending on social services and aid flows from affluent nations are all successful strategies for alleviating global poverty, the United Nations says. Access to low carbon energy and mobilizing domestic capital by, for example, improving tax collection, are the other factors the UN Development Programme (UNDP) identifies in a new report as crucial factors for the...