Amid rising food prices hitting the household budget, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said he has no "instant solution" to the problem. "Unlike instant coffee, there is no instant solution to such vexed problem as inflation," he told reporters when asked about the steps being taken by the government to check food inflation which almost touched 20 per cent during the third week of December. Discounting the possibility of...

It is apparent to everyone that the Copenhagen Accord is a travesty of what the world needs to avert climate change. Instead of an ambitious, effective, equitable and binding treaty with stringent emissions-cut targets for developed nations, we have a hollow Accord without legal status. The North has  offered a 16 per cent emissions-cut when 40-45 per cent is needed. Years of talks have been set at nought by a...

A large number of farmers, who had lost their crops, houses and other property in the recent Floods in north Karnataka, took out protest rally here on Tuesday to draw the State Government’s attention towards alleged irregularities in disbursing compensation to them and implementing relief works in the affected villages. The farmers, who were planning to storm the Vidhana Soudha, wanted an assurance from the Government on providing adequate compensation to...

THANTIRAYANKUPPAM, INDIA — Five years ago, I woke up on a Sunday morning, checked the news online and saw that a tsunami had hit my part of the world. Early reports were sketchy. I read about just a few casualties (in Sri Lanka, as I recall), and I remember thinking that the whole thing sounded exciting. I went down to the beach, about a 15-minute drive from my house. I walked...

Small and marginal farmers would be the worst sufferers of climate change, Union Minister for Agriculture and Food Sharad Pawar said here on Wednesday. “In the wake of water scarcity, erratic rainfall and changing temperature regimes, in addition to prevalent diseases and threat of new race of wheat stem rust Ug99, small and marginal farmers will be challenged. With the cost of cultivation already high, even a slight reduction in productivity...