Is India’s brand new Seed Bill capable of protecting the farmers' livelihoods? Or will it compromise their interest by allowing multinational seed companies to have a free run of the Indian seed market? The new Bill seeks to regulate the seed market and improve the quality of seeds as well as to harmonise and update the old policies in line with the current international practices for production, supply and for...

Several among the 70 known species of mangroves are at high risk of extinction and may disappear well before the next decade if protective measures are not enforced, warns the first global study by U.S. researchers. Eleven of these have been placed on the red list of threatened species kept by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The study, led by Beth A. Polidoro attached to the Global Marine Species...

The UPA government has betrayed its promise of inclusive growth over the years as a result of which poverty ratios have remained extremely high despite rapid economic growth, says Praful Bidwai. The new National Advisory Council must act urgently on nutritional security and public healthcare, he adds. The reconstitution of the National Advisory Council under Sonia Gandhi, announced by India’s United Progressive Alliance government, is good news. The original NAC died...

A meticulously researched book by A. Vaidyanathan, Agricultural Growth in India: Role of Technology, Incentives and Institutions, is an illuminating scholarly work. Thinking about it one realizes the dismal and declining state of Indian agriculture and the poor governance at both Central and state government levels that has brought it to this sorry pass. A valuable compendium of data and analysis of Indian agriculture since Independence, it is a valuable...

A big push to develop agriculture in the poorest countries is needed if the world is to feed itself in future decades, a report warns. With the world's population soaring to nine billion by mid-century, crop yields must rise, say the authors - yet climate change threatens to slash them. Already the number of chronically hungry people is above one billion. The report was prepared for a major conference on farming...