To promote organic farming in Uttar Pradesh, industry body Assocham has decided to adopt five districts in the state. “The Assocham has decided to develop five districts in UP as organic districts and a delegation of the association will soon meet chief minister Mayawati in this regard,” its general secretary D S Rawat told PTI. He said under the plan, training will be imparted to farmers of these districts, besides promoting medium...

When we hear the word innovation, we often think of new technologies or silver bullet solutions — like hydrogen fuel cells or a cure for cancer. To be sure, breakthroughs are vital: antibiotics and vaccines, for example, transformed global health. But as we’ve argued in Fixes, some of the greatest advances come from taking old ideas or technologies and making them accessible to millions of people who are underserved. One area...

After announcing food prices had reached record levels last week, the United Nation’s (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is now trying to play down concerns about shortages. The FAO’s representative for Asia and the Pacific region, Hiroyuki Konuma, admitted that food supply and demand were tight but said there were sufficient grain stocks to feed populations. Though certain foods such as sugar, meat, corn and soybeans are selling at a...

The question raises fundamental issues about the MGNREGA’s centralised template and poor delivery mechanism, but it is important to provide a legal basis to its wage structure to protect it against inflation. We need to remember that the way the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was originally conceived, wages were never meant to be equal to the minimum wages; they should have been lower. This is because the...

Twenty years ago, a Maruti 800, with an air-conditioner fitted, cost a little less than Rs 2 lakh. Today it costs about Rs 2.5 lakh. Twenty years ago, a branded 1.5 tonne window air-conditioner cost about Rs 30,000; today, you can get a split AC unit for that price. Then, Videocon was offering large refrigerators for more than Rs 30,000; you can get better units today for much less. TV...