One billion hungry people, the largest such cluster in history, are depending on another one billion to donate small amounts of cash to find food. The World Food Programme, facing a funding shortfall with donor governments hit by the financial crisis, has issued its first direct appeal to one billion individuals to stump up what they can to help others beat hunger. Josette Sheeran, head of the UN food aid...

An astonishing 200 million children under the age of five, almost all in Africa and Asia, suffer from the debilitating impact of stunted growth resulting from a lack of food and the right nutrients, a new United Nations report warned today. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report, Tracking Progress on Child and Maternal Nutrition, also stressed that undernutrition contributes to a third of deaths of all children under five each year,...

In one section of the university building where I teach, there is an enormous and motley collection of discarded computer-related items, stacked and piled in an unwieldy mess. This has been lying around for a while now, nearly a year, not only because of the prolonged bureaucratic procedures involved in getting material "written off", but also because no one knows what to do with the stuff once it has actually...

Those that have governed in tribal areas must share the responsibility for the negligence of the adivasis. The proposals for a multi-lateral dialogue should be set in that context.  There has been a flurry of concern as also vituperation over the activities of the Maoists in the forests that are mostly home to tribal society. There is a confrontation between the state and this society through the intervention of the...

EU trade commissioner said it will soon resolve the issue of confiscation of Indian drugs being exported to developing countries. EU Trade commissioner Catherine Ashton said a team of customs officials from the European Commission will be in New Delhi shortly to discuss the issue. “We talked about this issue. Our commitment on pharma, on generics is to find a solution that works for India,” she said after a meeting...