-The Hindu Business Line   Input subsidy expenses not contributing to boost productivity The World Bank has said that South Asia's foodgrain stock management, especially in India, needs to improve to tackle inflation. In its focus on food inflation in South Asia, the bank said that high stocks have led to high wastage due to inadequate storage capacity and technology. According to World Bank's estimates, the Food Corporation of India lost 10-16 million tonnes...

On one day — one minute — in the next month, the world's seven billionth human resident will be born. The United Nations is marking the occasion on the last day of October with what it describes it as an “opportunity” to promote “seven billion actions” for environmental sustainability and women's education, estimating that the world's population will top out at nine or 10 billion mid-century before declining as economic...

Global efforts to set a target for daily salt consumption at 5 grams, in order to reduce deaths due to stroke, has faced a major setback. The all important United Nations Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) Summit in New York, that kicks off on Monday, is unlikely to set a global target for reduction in salt consumption levels. According to the NCD Alliance, a formal alliance of four international federations -- International Diabetes Federation,...

-The United Nations   A United Nations human rights expert today called for taxing unhealthy food, regulating harmful marketing practices and standing up to the food industry, urging world leaders not to miss the chance at a summit next week to end a state of affairs that kills nearly 3 million adults each year. “Voluntary guidelines are not enough. World leaders must not bow to industry pressure,” Special Rapporteur on the Right to...

-The Business Standard   Demand-side control cannot be an answer beyond a point to India’s persistently high food price inflation, the World Bank said on Monday. Consumer price-based food inflation in India has been at 10-20 per cent for quite a long while, noted its report on ‘Food inflation in South Asia’. The Bank’s chief economist for the region, Kalpana Kochhar, said controlling inflation in India was a difficult job for the Reserve Bank...