From the Middle East to Madagascar, high prices are spawning land grabs and ousting dictators. Welcome to the 21st-century food wars. In the United States, when world wheat prices rise by 75 percent, as they have over the last year, it means the difference between a $2 loaf of bread and a loaf costing maybe $2.10. If, however, you live in New Delhi, those skyrocketing costs really matter: A doubling in...

A report by the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) reveals that there is a strong link between farmers’ suicides and denial of social and gender justice. It says that farmers’ suicides, which are a grim marker of India’s agrarian crisis, will become more severe in times to come due to the existing gender and caste-based discrimination. Issued by CHRGJ and the International Human Rights Clinic (at New York...

Seven meetings and a stalemate. What now for the Lokpal Bill? It’s War Out There Seven meetings on, government and civil society reps drafting the Lokpal bill are split on four key issues Ambit     * Civil society: PM and Supreme and High Court judges should be brought under Lokpal’s purview     * Government: This is constitutionally untenable; PM should get immunity or should be investigated with adequate safeguards Scope     * Civil society: MPs can...

The Posco project has turned into a political hot potato with the two main Opposition parties trying to extract as much out of it as possible, hoping the Rs 51000 crore project turns into another Singur. At a time when Naveen Patnaik government finds itself embroiled in a number of unsavoury controversies, including horse trading during the Rajya Sabha elections, the Congress and the BJP are looking to deliver the coup...

Punjab's attempts at diversification from water-guzzling paddy hasn’t made much headway. With looming desertification and reverse flow from water-logged blocks having brackish groundwater to areas where the groundwater table is fast depleting, the need to diversify has been underlined since long. Even in a lean monsoon year (2009), there was a record harvest of the crop. Its acreage did not fall even last year when a major part of the paddy...