In the mid-eighties there was a rumour which later turned out to be true: US livestock were being fed with foodgrains in order to ensure better quality of their meat. Later it proved to be corn and not fine cereals like wheat and rice. The Indian intelligentsia was appalled and indignant: How come cows and buffaloes were fed with grains while millions of people continued to live below the poverty line...

-The Wall Street Journal These days, Indian policymakers are debating how to create a vast new food entitlement program. There is talk of poor households struggling to cope with high food prices and malnourishment among their children. What you don’t hear much about, however, is the most tragic and outrageous consequence of India’s failure to feed its people adequately: starvation deaths. India is a nation that prides itself on having been self-sufficient in...

The agitation against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant can be seen as a case of activism gone berserk. The high-octane drama against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) in Tamil Nadu has wound down. The seven-month-long agitation led by the People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) at Idinthakarai village in Tirunelveli district, demanding the closure of the ready-to-be commissioned project, ended on March 27 when S.P. Udayakumar, PMANE convener, called off...

-The Times of India In a decision that jeopardizes land allocated to corporates and institutions such as Microsoft, Wipro, Infosys, Emaar, Indian School of Business and Lanco, the Andhra Pradesh high court on Tuesday refused to entertain petitions that challenged the power of the Andhra state wakf board to notify 1,650 acres of in Manikonda village of Ranga Reddy district as wakf land. The court asked the companies to approach the tribunal...

 If the data provided by the Union government is to be believed, various bigwigs of the Congress, the Communist parties, the socialists and the Janata Party have been placed in the list of "freedom fighters". Prominent among these are Giani Zail Singh, P V Narasimha Rao, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, Darbara Singh, Morarji Desai, Biju Patnaik, Devi Lal, R Venkataraman, Kamla Bahuguna, Babubhai Patel, Lalita Shastri (wife of Lal Bahadur Shastri), Indrani...