-The Hindu The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, by granting approval to GM trials even before the Supreme Court ruled in the matter, has shown an undue haste Union Minister of Environment , Forests and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar, was petitioned by farmers and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch to halt trials of transgenic crops approved by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) on July 18 and there is some confusion if the...

-The Indian Express For the first time, the interests of farmers, livelihood losers and SC/ST communities have been given high priority. After intensive and extensive consultations lasting for over two years, the UPA 2 government succeeded in getting Parliament to pass a historic new land acquisition law in September 2013. This law completely replaced the colonial Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The new legislation did not fully satisfy everybody but it came to...

-The Business Standard States need to create alternative marketing structures for farm produce since middlemen also provide vital services that are otherwise unavailable to the farmer   One of the issues often raised in the context of high food inflation is the pressing need to change the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC), the marketing boards established by state governments. The earlier United Progressive Alliance government had asked the Congress-ruled states to remove fruit...

-Tehelka Bureau Though well-meaning, the new Land Acquisition Act is far from being a perfect legislation. But the urgency to amend a law even before a real field test signals a larger agenda. By all counts, this was expected. Long before he became the BJP and subsequently the nation's chosen one, Narendra Modi had made it clear that his model of development gains from the ease of doing business. Then, days ahead...

-The Hindu We need a National Authority on Hunger Elimination, with adequate funds and exclusive powers, administrative and financial Of the eight Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations, the first relates to eradicating poverty and extreme hunger, halving hunger by 2015. But most of the countries, including India, have not achieved tangible results on this front. With 2015 around the corner, the new government has a major task of addressing...